AN: I'M SO SORRY!. As I told you all, I've had this chapter written for a while, and I was planning to post it a few days after I put up the last one, but alas… I lost the notebook it was written in. You see, I write all of my stories in spiral notebooks, and each story gets its own notebook, and sometimes its own set of notebooks. Needless to say, that's a lot of notebooks to go through, especially when you can't remember which one you were looking for. (I tend to try to find one the looks like it 'fits' the story that's being written inside it; it helps me remember which one is which. Unfortunately this one's notebook looks frighteningly like the notebook I used for a Labyrinth/Harry Potter x-over and every time I thought I had this one I had the other one!) Also, as a side note, I know at one point Mercedes Lackey mentions that Seejay is even more landlocked than Valdemar, but that just doesn't work for me, so I'm going to pretend not to know that little inconvenient fact and I ask you to do the same. In my world Seejay borders a Southern Sea. Anyway, I finally found it so I can finally post this chapter and work on the next one! As always, I own nothing. I hope ya'll enjoy!

Lost

Chapter Three

Beatrice sighed as she sank into the warm water. It had been six long weeks of travel from the Seejayan capital to the Valdemaran city of Haven. The Valdemaran inns had been nice, some better than others, but she missed her own home, or even her 'other home' at Blood Pledge. She frowned as her mind drifted back to her last visit to the Mazoku capital. As much as she loved her Mazoku 'Uncles', she hated visiting. Shin Mazoku had become a sad place since her heart-sister's death and the loss of the heir. Fourteen years of mourning might seem extreme for their human neighbors, but for the long-lived demons, it was hardly any time at all.

A soft tap on the door woke her from her melancholy thoughts. "Yes?" She called aloud, carefully twisting her tongue around the foreign words she had struggled to perfect on her journey.

"I'm sorry, m'lady." The voice was muffled through the door and she momentarily cursed the Valdemaran shyness. "There's an 'Erald 'ere to see you m'lady."

The Cavalcade woman sighed as she rose, thinking to herself that two hours of soaking was nowhere near enough to wash off the grit of the road. "I'm getting out now." She said. "If your herald can wait a few minutes I'll be ready to see him."

"Yes, m'lady." The timid maid acknowledged. Beatrice listened as she left, presumably to speak to the Herald. She shook her head. That was something else Ryse had been unable to properly explain; what exactly were the Heralds? His explanation, 'people who do what needs doing', didn't tell her anything. It was no wonder the man was a diplomat.

As she firmly tied the sash of her bathing robe, she glanced at herself in the mirror. Gone were the pigtails her 'Uncles' had been so fond of, traded for a tangled mass of frothy golden waves which were currently dark and straight as a board. Her large blue eyes were kind, but tired from her travels, and her skin was a rosy pink from the warm water.

Tearing her gaze away from the mirror, she began to move quickly, dressing properly for her visitor.

§

Herald Nikolas smiled as the young maid scurried from the room. Rebecca wasn't normally so shy, but yet another possible foreign spy had her nervous. He hadn't been waiting for more than a moment before their latest ambassador entered the room. She was petite with long blonde hair and wide blue eyes, and though he couldn't put his finger on the reason, something about her was infinitely sad. "Lady Beatrice, I presume?" He smiled. She nodded. "I'm Herald Nikolas. I was hoping for a word with you before you're presented to the king."

"It seems I am at your disposal, Herald Nikolas." She said carefully, with a slight bob of a curtsy.

"You needn't curtsy." He smiled. "We tend to be rather relaxed outside of court."

"Good." She nodded. "Some of Cavalcade's neighbors can be a bit stuffy. I much prefer a place where a body is permitted to breathe."

The King's Own laughed. "You'll find breathing is encouraged in Valdemar."

Beatrice smiled. "I must confess, I find that comforting. Now tell me Herald, what can I do for you?"

Nikolas sighed. "I was hoping you could tell me about the people you told Lady Mirius about. She could only tell us vague stories. Quite frankly, they aren't enough to confirm or deny the identity of our imposters."

"For example?" She asked, taking a seat in a large overstuffed chair.

"Mirius told us that they were more than human, and that sounded like our problem; faster, stronger, and possessing strange magic." The tall herald gave her a lopsided smile. "As I said, it's not exactly enough to confirm or deny, but at this point we're willing to do almost anything to catch these people."

The blonde was quiet for a moment, watching the herald speculatively. "That does describe the people I told Lady Mirius about, but it also describes several others as well. While humans do hold the majority on this world, we are hardly the only people here. I'm assuming your imposters can easily pass for human?" At his curt nod she grimaced.

"I highly doubt it was dragons, you could hardly fail to recognize them."

"I thought dragons were a myth." He frowned.

"Hardly." She smiled. "However, they tend to keep to their nests on the other side of the world. The Bone Tribes are rather distinctive as well, and while they aren't exactly against assassinations, they are very friendly and are fiercely loyal to the Mazoku who protect them, and the Mazoku are very much against such acts.

"Could it be these Mazoku?" Nikolas pressed. "I know you told Herald Ryse that it wasn't them, but are you certain? Is there anything that would make them do this?"

Beatrice shook her head. "The Mazoku are just like everyone else, but they are ruled by a pacifist whom they adore. The only thing that would send them to war at this point would be a prolonged threat to their Maoh or his heir."

She frowned when he tensed slightly. "What would they consider a prolonged threat?"

"Why, are you planning to threaten them?"

"No, I want to make sure we couldn't have accidentally have upset them without knowing it."

She shook her head. "You would know it. The Maoh is a bit of a busy body, so they're used to him being arrested and held in various countries for various hair-brained schemes. They don't generally take offense to minor insults. It's only when you threaten to torture without ever releasing him that they get riled up, and then he's more than powerful enough to escape on his own."

"So there's no way we could have set them off by accident?"

"No, and even if you had, they wouldn't bother with assassination. They're a bit more direct with threats." She smiled.

"Are there any others that you can think of?"

"Only one other race, but it can't be them."

"Why not?"

"Because they're dead." She shrugged. "They threatened the Mazoku, and the Maoh destroyed every last one of them. The Originators are extinct."

Nikolas blanched at her words. "The Mazoku killed them? But I thought you said they were pacifists?"

"They are." Beatrice nodded. "But they aren't pushovers. If you attack them they will meet force with force. The Maoh avoids war to the point of foolishness, but when push comes to shove he won't let anything hurt his people."

"Are you certain these Originators are dead? I mean, if a few escaped and are trying to frame your Mazoku to start a war with us…" He suggested.

The blonde woman stilled, regarding the Valdemaran with a look of barely contained horror. "It would be a disaster. Humans have no defense against the Originators. Even the strongest of the Mazoku have a hard time fighting them. We would be completely at their mercy."

"But you said their race was decimated. Surely a small handful couldn't-"

"It wouldn't matter if only two escaped." She cut him off. "The Originators have no bodies of their own. They burrow into a person's soul and fester, growing and multiplying, spreading like a plague at the slightest touch. Imprisoned they grew and multiplied so that even the Maoh nearly couldn't destroy them. It took them millennium, but they did it. Free and unfettered for the past thirty years they could become the plague the Mazoku named them." She took a deep calming breath. "Tell me everything about these foreign imposters."

§

Kiril sat back, a look of startled dismay on his handsome face. The morning and afternoon courts had been canceled in favor of an emergency council session as soon as Nikolas and Rolan had learned of Lady Beatrice's fears. Even Mags was keeping an 'ear' on the session and adding his thoughts through Nikolas.

"You say we're fighting ghosts?" Bard Lita frowned.

"Not ghosts." Beatrice said firmly. "The Originators put ghosts to shame. They don't have bodies any more. The first Maoh destroyed their bodies hoping to kill them, but they survived it by possessing the souls of anyone nearby. For humans it is fatal. You live as a puppet trapped in your own soul watching as the Originators commit atrocities with your hands. In a few months to a year, your body can no longer take the strain of an extra soul and it starts to atrophy and break, shutting down organs while you're still alive. For the Mazoku, they can survive almost forever hidden in their psyche. The only saving grace is that they must be invited into a human soul. Sadly they find no shortage of volunteers. Though, in a pinch they can ride a corpse."

"How do you fight them?" Sedric frowned.

"I don't know." The foreign woman confessed. "I was ten when the last war was fought and they were supposed to have been destroyed. The only people who have ever successfully fought the Originators are the Mazoku." She answered him grimly. "Even our best sorcerers and esoteric masters are defenseless against their magic."

Nikolas suddenly got a look that Beatrice was quickly beginning to associate with a herald who was 'listening' to someone not present. "Does the name 'Meric' mean anything to you?" He asked after a moment. "We know that they are looking for someone named Meric."

"Not to me." She frowned. "But perhaps to the Mazoku. I know there at least two Mazoku who remember the first war when the Originators were defeated. They would know."

"I don't know how much good that will do us." Dean Caelin said kindly. "They're on the other side of the world, and it would take them far too long to get here even if we did send for them and they could come."

Beatrice smiled. "Not quite." She said. "If you want, I can send them a message right here, right now, and it would take perhaps three or four hours to receive a reply."

"You can communicate that quickly?" Sorren asked astonished. "Over such great distances?"

"Faster if his Majesty is visiting the Shrine of the Great One." She nodded.

"How?" The guild master asked, genuinely curious.

"A letter is easiest." She answered. "If you would like to write a letter to the Maoh explaining your situation and asking your questions, I'll send it with one of my own explaining what I understand the situation to be." She offered.

Kiril signaled a page to bring ink and parchment. "What else do you need?" He asked.

"A bottle with cork and wax to seal it, and a basin of water big enough to fit the bottle."

"I thought a bottled message was supposed to be thrown into open water, like a lake or river." Lita said wryly.

"That would work too." Beatrice answered evenly. "But this way it will return to this room and we won't have to wander about looking for the reply."

Kiril and Beatrice quickly scrawled out their respective notes and soon Beatrice was sealing them into the bottle with the cork and wax. "Will they be able to translate the notes?" Sorren asked curiously.

"Not in Shin Makoku." Beatrice frowned. "There are some Seejayan ambassadors in Cavalcade that they will need to get in touch with to translate the note written in Valdemaran, but my note was written in the language of the Maoh's homeland." She smiled, somewhat proudly. "Only a handful of people in this world speak Japanese, and they are all in the Mazoku royal family."

"Then how did you come to learn it?" Dean Caelin asked as a large shallow basin of water was brought in and set before the blonde.

The Lady Beatrice paused, a sad look in her eyes. "I was childhood friends with his daughter, and the Maoh taught us both." She said softly. "I spent a great deal of my youth visiting Blood Pledge Castle." Then she pulled a small charm bracelet from under her sleeve and unclasped it. Letting the charm dangle in the water she swirled it around in a circle a few times until the water seemed to glow faintly. "Lady Ulrikё, its Beatrice. I've a very urgent message for either his Majesty or his Eminence, whichever one you can reach first."

The council watched as the light pulsed once, then the water in the basin began to spin creating a vortex. Quickly she dropped the sealed bottle into the turbulent water. The Valdemarans watched in shock as it was sucked to the center of vortex and then pulled down as if through a drain. Within seconds it was gone. When the water stilled a moment later, the blonde lifted her bracelet out of the water, wiped it on her skirt and returned it to her wrist. "Now we wait." She said calmly.

AN: Well, there it is. I hope you all liked it. I'll try to have the next chapter up soon, but I make no guarantee! Wish me luck on not loosing the notebook again! ;P