When they crested the rise, the southern coast stretched out before them. Even Sumira, used to the beating sun of Marakkech, had to shade her eyes. It was not quite noon and the sun was high in a clear sky, reflecting off the expanse of smooth, white sand before them. The grub swaddled against the scholar's chest squirmed, peaking its head out of its bundle for the first time since breakfast. It squealed and chirped, tiny legs reaching towards the surf.

Under the shade of her bangled forearm, Sumira grinned, and her elation was infectious. Enoch, the scholar, skidded after her down the sandy slope, struggling to kick his boots off on the way. They had travelled in search of an obscure artifact: an object of power that was said to be, unlike most such enchanted things, an instrument of peace.

Their grub companion had spoken of it as they had fled the Tyrax siege. "The Orbe of Divers Elementes," it had called it. "It was created by the Leviathan clans as a gift to the Volente Wyverns, an offering that has secured generations of peace and goodwill. Because it is given from the deep, it can never sink and return there. There are stories of its power saving shipwrecked sailors, bringing them safely to shore. Wherever it may be, it draws down the Volente, who adulate it."

"'Wherever it may be?' They don't have it in a vault somewhere? A temple?"

"Their vault is the sky, and their holy place is the ocean."

"So, this object of power. It's just... out there. On the ocean."

"Upon the south sea. Search for the shadows of Volente wings and perhaps we will find it!"

Sumira had agreed it was a long shot, but as the Tyrax marched from the north and west, they were driven southward regardless. They could try. The southern beaches were hardly the most inhospitable place for a quest.

Soon they were standing together barefoot in the surf, Sumira's skirts trailing in the water, the scholar's trousers rolled up to his knees. He dug at a small burrow in the wet sand with his toe, jerking his foot back when a pair of brightly colored, shimmering crabs emerged and brandished their claws at him. As the next wave swept in, they scuttled away into the shallows.

"There," Sumira said, pointing to the horizon. Enoch followed the graceful sweep of her arm and saw white plumes of mist near the horizon. Leviathans. And in the clouds above them, small shadows that could have been birds.

"Wyverns, do you think?"

Sumira shrugged. "They're so far out."

"Maybe we're unaccountably lucky." Enoch brought a hand to his chest, but instead of finding his birding glasses, he ended up patting the grub on its round face and getting a tiny, mandibled smooch on his palm. He sighed.

The spouts were approaching. The sun was warm, the breeze was welcoming, and they party found themselves in no hurry. They watched and waited for the pod to come to shore. As they drew nearer, they could see the Leviathans' smooth, shining backs rolling under the waves. They could see some small thing among them, bobbing like flotsam, shepherded along by the great creatures. And they could see the shapes in the sky were far too large to be gulls.

Enoch scowled. He couldn't help himself. "Gods below and above, we are never this lucky," he muttered. They could see flashes of color on that bobbing sphere among the Leviathans.

"Something can still go wrong," Sumira said sympathetically, patting Enoch's shoulder.

He sighed.

Then, as the forms of the Leviathans breached the waves, their broad feet finding purchase in the sand, one of them lifted his head beneath the Orbe itself, flinging it high into the air. A shadow passed over them, a rush of wind, and a shining winged creature caught the sphere in its jaws.

The Leviathans slapped the water with their flukes. Applause

The flock of Wyverns began to land and settle around them, crowing at their fellow as he wheeled in the sky and returned. He landed hard, skidding to a stop, nearly spraying them with sand. He held in his jaws a sphere with wedges of color.

"Blue for water. Red for fire. Green for earth. White for air. And yellow for spirit." The grub spoke in his reedy voice. "Behold! The Orbe of Divers Elementes!"

Sumira heard the vast huffing sound of a Leviathan spouting behind her. She couldn't help but feel like it was a snort of laughter.

She held up her hands to protect her face, but the impact was light, and she bounced the ball up into the air with her fingertips. A huge fluke swept above her head, flinging it into the sky for the Wyverns to chase again.

"So that's how it works," Enoch said dryly.

"Mmmhmm." The understanding murmur from the Leviathan beside them felt like it could've moved the earth. "There are six tourneys a year, two on the pro circuit."