Drakis stared at the Lyric for a moment, then held up his hand. “Wait. Do you hear it?”
“Hear what?” Mala asked.
“Listen!”
In the immediate stillness, the tones of a set of pipes drifted through the garden.
Drakis stared down at the dwarf, who was trying to keep his oversized robe closed around him. Jugar shrugged, shaking his head in denial.
“If it isn’t the dwarf, where is that music coming from?” Drakis asked.
“From your destiny, Drakis,” the Lyric said. “Shall we find it together?”
The lithe woman walked with long, measured steps toward one of the arched doors. With elegant grace, she pulled the doors open and stepped into the enormous hall beyond.
Drakis took Mala’s hand and pulled her along as he followed the Lyric with Jugar keeping so close behind that he stepped on Drakis’ heel several times before the human’s angry looks forced him farther away.
The hall was a magnificent space with galleries on both sides. Here the floor was polished stone, cool to their bare feet as they walked across its even and measured tiles. It was over a hundred feet in length, dizzying in size, and, to Drakis’ mind, brain-numbing in its impracticality. It was opulent, glorious, and magnificent all at once and yet seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever. There were no audience chairs here for an assemblage nor artwork for display, nor did it appear to have anything to do with combat or training or any other function that Drakis could imagine.
They followed the Lyric through the enormous arch at the far end of the hall into a magnificent garden. In its center stood a raised dais platform with a wide, grand throne. The back of the throne fanned up and over the seat with sheltering branches and golden leaves. Three figures stood before the throne and were at once recognized by Drakis: Ethis the chimerian and both manticores, Belag and RuuKag.
It was the fourth figure seated on the throne that caught Drakis’ attention, for she was the one who was playing the pipes. She was an enormous human-appearing woman who, Drakis judged, would be fully eight feet tall when standing. She wore a robe of deep turquoise in color though the exact shade seemed to shift as she swayed with the rhythm of her song. She was a strange woman, to Drakis’ eye; her hips were disproportionately wide, and she appeared heavy even for her height. Her breasts were enormous and seemed barely kept in check by the closed robe. She had a wide, fleshy face that tried unsuccessfully to obscure two brightly twinkling eyes. Her mouse-brown hair fell in wavy strands down as far as where her waist should have been.
She looked up at once as they approached, her panpipes dropping from the warm smile of her supple lips.
“So you do come when called,” she said in a deep alto voice filled with the warmth of late spring.
The Lyric stopped at the base of the dais, and Drakis, Mala and the dwarf stopped just behind her.
The Lyric bowed deeply. When she spoke, her voice was suddenly high-pitched and had a nasal quality to it that Drakis had never heard before. “Queen Murialis! I am Felicia of the Mists. . Princess of the Erebusia Isles. I have long traveled the paths of the sky and hidden my identity from common men, but I lay myself bare before you, my royal sister!”
Drakis gaped at the Lyric. “You’re. . who?”
Murialis, Queen of the Nymphs and Dryads, nodded with a smile, then turned to Ethis. “Is this the Lyric you were telling me about?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Ethis replied.
Murialis turned back to the Lyric. “My sister, you are most welcome here in the Eternal Halls. May you find respite from your weary road and surcease for a time from your adventures. You honor us with your trust.”
“Thank you, Murialis,” the Lyric said imperiously. “Your kindness shall forever be remembered among my clan.”
“Of course,” Murialis said with a slight smile. “As a princess, perhaps you might rest for a time while I give audience to your companions? I understand that you-Felicia-are constantly weary.”