“Nay, Cinnia is nearing her time, and one of us should be with her,” Minau replied. “She is very unpleasant of late, and the others do not want to be near her.”
“I am sorry,” Arlais replied. “Would you like me to remain instead of visiting?”
“Nay,” Minau responded. “You are always taking the heaviest burdens upon yourself. If you wish to see your sons today then go. I can manage Cinnia. She is so difficult of late that even our husband does not wish to be near her.” Minau chuckled.
The bubbles of the world called Yafirdom were connected by passageways fashioned from clear crystal quartz. Leaving the small castle Arlais made her way through the corridor that would take her to the bubble community where her sons lived.
She found them in the dwelling that they shared for neither yet had taken a wife.
“Good morning, my sons,” she greeted them as she stepped through the door of their cottage. They came forward, kissing her cheeks and leading her to a seat by the stone hearth. “I have brought you a small gift,” Arlais said. “But it is delicate, and you must be careful when you handle it.” She drew forth the small crystal sphere from the pocket of her robe and held it out. “Take it, Behrooz,” she said to her eldest son, “and say aloud,
Behrooz, a tall young man with the silvery hair and aquamarine eyes of all the Yafir males, took the sphere from his mother. It sat in the palm of his hand. Looking down at it he said,
“King Dillon and his Shadow Prince companions created this province for us,” Arlais said quietly. “He would welcome the Yafir unlike his predecessors.”
Her two other sons, Sohrab and Nasim, crowded about their eldest brother, peering down into the crystal in Behrooz’s hand.
“Is this a trick?” Sohrab asked his mother.
“It is so beautiful!” Nasim, the artist, murmured.
“Have you and Behrooz not spoken on leaving this world in which we are trapped?” Arlais asked her two elder sons.
“Where would we go? The Belmairans hate and distrust us,” Sohrab answered her. “There is no world that will accept the Yafir. Has not our father told us that many times? Is that not why he created this place for us?”
“King Dillon would have us inhabit Belbuoy. And some of our folk may even live in the other provinces except Beltran, for its duke does not want us. Our race is dying. And so are the Belmairans. We need each other to survive. We need to be one people, my sons. At last Belmair has a king, a powerful king, who understands this, and would welcome us. I know that you want to go, for you have said it to me. As for Yafirdom, your father did not create it. Nor does he maintain it. I have learned that the Yafir were saved by a Shadow Prince who took pity on us. It is he who gave us all of this, and keeps it for us. But this great Shadow Prince will not be able to sustain us much longer. He grows weak with the great effort he has been expending for us. We must return to the land, or we will die,” Arlais told her three sons.
“There are many who would go, Mother,” Behrooz admitted.
“But they are afraid of father, and they are afraid of the future. I need more than a crystal sphere that shows me beautiful pictures to convince them.”
“And how would we get there?” Sohrab said. “We will drown if we leave the bubbles. We need to know more. How is it that you know these things?”
Arlais smiled. “I have visited with Belmair’s queen upon the Dream Plain twice now. Last night was our second meeting, and she gave me the crystal sphere to bring to you so you might see. I will meet with her again in two nights’ time.”
“We must come with you,” Behrooz said. “We must meet this queen and speak with her ourselves. How can we attain the Dream Plain?”
“I do not know,” Arlais admitted. “All I can tell you is that I sleep, and the queen calls to me. I follow the sound of her voice through the mists in order to find her. Then we meet face-to-face and speak.”
“Ask her to call to us, as well,” Sohrab begged his mother. “Before we dare to beard our father we must know more, be certain of these things you tell us and we see.”
“If father has not the magic to have created the bubbles and sustain them, then what magic has he?” Behrooz wanted to know.
“The queen tells me that the Yafir are considered the lowliest of the magic folk. Your father has the power to come and go as he will, to mix potions and to make himself invisible, but that is all he can do. These things I have seen myself. But never have I seen him do great things as he claims he can.”
“How can we be certain that this King Dillon is all that he says he is?” Behrooz asked. “Is his magic truly greater than our father’s? Remember that our father stole King Dillon’s wife away, and has put a child in her belly.”
Arlais hesitated a long moment, and then she said, “Your father knows it not, my sons, but King Dillon’s magic is so great that he himself came to take his wife back. The girl who will bear your father’s child is Queen Cinnia’s double, Sapphira of Beldane, who King Dillon took briefly as his mistress. Once King Dillon learned where the Yafir hid themselves he acted immediately to reclaim his wife. But he wanted no direct confrontation with your father because the king is a man of peace. He would solve the problems that exist between us without a war. If the king had taken the queen boldly it would have caused much difficulty between our peoples. You know your father’s great pride. He could not have withstood being bested. The wife he calls Cinnia makes him happy, and I am told the child she carries will be the daughter he so desires. There is no need for him to ever know the truth. And the girl is content, as well. She is a creature who enjoys being wed to a powerful male, and loves all the riches he bestows upon her.”
Behrooz nodded. “If all you have told us is truth, Mother, then it is time for us to leave the sea and return to the land once more. But ask Belmair’s queen to call us to the Dream Plain so we may speak with her, and be reassured.” He turned to his brothers. “Do you agree?” he asked them.
Sohrab and Nasim nodded. “We do,” they said with one voice.
“To be able to paint in the sunlight,” Nasim said softly.
“To be able to farm again,” Sohrab replied.
“But how will we get there?” Behrooz asked.
“I do not know,” Arlais responded. “That is a question you must ask the queen, my sons. And another question would be how did we get here? Even your father will not say how it was effected.”
“Because he does not know,” Behrooz said. “If he did not make this all happen, then it is unlikely he knows how it did. He will not want to go, you know.”
“He is the leader of his people,” Arlais said. “When he sees this is what they want he will relent.”
“He will never relent,” Behrooz answered her. “His hatred of the Belmairans is too great for him to overcome. As for me, I am tired of hating. I want to live in the full sunlight, and feel the air upon my face. I want to take a wife and have a family. I am tired of living this restricted existence beneath the seas. And so are all of our friends. I know this is all we have ever known, but we know there is more, and we want it.”
“You will go even if he forbids it, won’t you?” Arlais asked quietly.
Her three sons nodded.
“But first we must speak with Queen Cinnia,” Behrooz told her.
“Not tonight, but tomorrow night,” Arlais told them. “Drink some wine before you sleep so you will sleep heavily. It is easier to reach the Dream Plain then.”
She spent the day with her sons, seeing that their little cottage was cleaned, washing their garments and hanging them to dry in the breezeless garden. Then she fixed them a good meal, eating with them before she returned to the castle. Entering the common room she found the other wives in an uproar and the false Cinnia weeping.
“We cannot calm her,” Minau said drily.
“What is the matter with her?” Arlais asked.
“The child does not move!” the false Cinnia sobbed. “Suddenly the child does not move. It is surely dead! He will never forgive me!”
“If the child does not move it is preparing to be born,” Arlais said in a matter-of-tone of voice. “Cease your
