Swirls of orange, yellow, green, and blue flames danced through sparking prisms of mist, plunged into fountains of iridescent metals, and rose again on scented whirls of air to arc across the street, and start again behind laughing children running around and through families and strangers alike.

Scents and colors, foods and drinks, color upon color upon of gaiety; wines and honey meads, rich ales, fruity concoctions, along with the bitterest of dwarven ales, all were present throughout Dora Karendar during the Festival of the Elements. Any, and all, things were expected during this, one of two primary festivals in Dhora Karendar.  While many minor celebrations bubbled through the year, our biggest jubiliees were the the Festival of the Fates at the beginning of every year, and this, the annual festivities of everything magical in the middle of the year. Four days each, building on the previous day until the final day was a raucous riot of color and spells, every element of magic weaving among the people in celebration, throngs bouncing through the streets and up the cliff paths to the four elemental temples dedicated to the primary Fates from which all magic emanates, Aidree and Sashelas, Aes and Thosi.

I have never been able to adequately describe to the inexperienced the free spirits, the music, the food, the chaos of a Festival Week at home. Nearly all of the people have some skill at magic, and its all let loose during the feasts and entertainment throughout the streets of the port city. There have been time in the past that those not of the people have hidden in fear or awe on their ships or in their rooms, not because they were threatened intentionally, but because their minds could not process the colors and sounds. Some could not bring themselves to leave the port again, at least without a few visits to the Kahina’s to mitigate the ties magic had accidentally encouraged in their minds.

One of the only tenets of the otherwise free flowing festival is the expected order in which the celebration festivities occur. The latter three days are spent with family, then friends, and finally, strangers. Most everyone spends the first day involved in a port wide giant market when most purchased everything they needed for their celebrations. While it is impossible to not see friends, or families, generally, on the final day, it is certainly expected that guests or newcomers, and new experiences from food, to drink, to spell-craft, and yes, to pleasures of the flesh as well as the mind, that’s the design of the final day, if there is such a thing as a plan.

My memory has no problem recreating the festival of two years gone in full, whatever my desires.

The Sea Crawler  arrived three days prior to the beginning of the Festival. A more auspicious time of arrival with a hold full of fresh and salted bloodfish could not have been possible. That alone would have covered half the operating expenses of the clan several months of the year. With Tylerian’s known skill in herbalism , we  had high expectations of generating enough in profits from the varied powders, libations, blood and scales and organs of the lightly magical fish to begin expansion activities.

Assuming we could get everything completed in time for the clebratons, anyway. We all drove long hours in the heat of the day, and long into the nights. Even Aunt Valerus got her hands dirty, and I had rarely seen that. Everyone said she was the hardest of task mistresses when she commanded her own ship, throwing nets with the crews, running lines, shivering in a gale if necessary. But that was long before I was even born, as she had taken over the reigns of the clan nearly a hundred years ago, a few decades before my birth. The crew of the Sea Serpent also were sucked into the maelstrom of activity. Tylerian may have been Ari’ngole, but no one doubted her processes, her meticulous procedures, her demanding supervision.

I saw our Fate guest only briefly for evening meals within the clan house. She spent most of her time traveling the streets to and from the Temple of the Moon Fate. Dajeek and Valerik hovered around the warehouse, afraid to wander the streets where so few humans resided, or so it seemed. They appeared grateful to assist when asked, and Aunt Valerus only considered briefly, before acquiescing to my request that we add them, temporarily, to the clan payroll. They nodded eagerly at the chance to earn their own coin. I never noticed, until long too late, that they never spoke in response.

We all worked the first festival day, as was common, and the coffers swelled with the sales of bloodfish, of course, but also the more common mussels, oysters, fish and shark, octopus, lobster from our own catches, as well as the spirits and cloths of any minor merchant family. Even a few weapons of strange provenance or design, anything the captains or the family thought might generate a profit worthy of cargo space. We worked late until the evening, as we did every year before the tables outside our warehouse were brought out, and filled with all of the fresh foods we did not sell, and beverages of all types, and we celebrated with our crews and their families.

The second day of festival, family day, dawned in glorious color. The weather mages and their assistance assured the festival passed without interruption, whatever that took, modifying the patterns of wind and sea, and it only rained where the people wanted, in small batches, and the sun, or moon, shown when needed during the raucous days..

Few of the Windstars were in Karendar two years ago, a not uncommon occurrence.   Traders are by nature absent, and fishermen even more so.  Father, of course, since he rarely left the waters of the Marquise any longer, great-cousin Sinareas, captain of the Wind Serpent. Valerus, as well. Grandmother and her two siblings. Most everyone else remained at sea, or somewhere in transit, pursuing trade or fish. Kolaryien and I were of course the youngest at forty years. I rarely joined the conversation for the most part listening to the social and political gossip.  Captain Loricare is a fine captain, but as a young seaman away for constant periods searching for the rare catch after almost two years of relatively constant time on the Sea Crawler, returning only for brief spurts for supplies and to trade our catches, I was no longer up to speed on the political events, either here at home or in the closer cities.

The news that the Marquise had taken a human lover, and even seemed to manipulate her ascent to Sultan of Dhar as-Kadarasta, was of particular note to our small merchant clan, and the implications that it had on trade, well, some of Valerus’s comments were not particularly festival worthy. While many could afford to take a wait and see attitude, its not an optimum situation for a clan such as ours. Nearly a full month’s journey from here to Dhar as-Fanajan by an average ship, up to three months to include other stops, and of course the actual trade of goods, we might not have good, or sufficient information for as much as a year from now.  Of most interest were the attempts at magical enhancement of fish, a topic Valerus considered of even more importance, but while the spells worked, the decomposition rate accelerated once lifted.  I had little to offer, and the family research continued.  

Perhaps Valerus grew tired of the “suggestions” of Grandmother as to how we should act, or not act, but the family dinner ended relatively early that night, well before dusk. Which was all the well, as much as I love my family, I was far more entranced with seeing friends the next day, and with learning what Kaloryien had learned about our “guest,” the slave owner. Kahina’s of the Moon were not the most expeditious of actors, however, and, other than observation over the last several days, nothing significant had occurred.

All of which played into my plans, or so I thought. Too bad I wasn’t the only one making plans.