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Arkk had missed the opening of the Underworld portal. It was understandable, really, on account of having an audience with a god at the time. He had seen the after-effects, of course. The shimmering, almost water-like membrane that separated the two worlds and the lit runes embedded in the portal’s crystalline archway were certainly a sight to behold. Arkk wasn’t sure that he had much of a reaction after seeing the other portal. But, again, he had just met a god. It was hard to be impressed by much after that.

With the memories of Xel’atriss having faded over time, Arkk watched with rapt attention as the shimmering liquid flooded the interior of the archway, like a pool of water lifted vertically. A light ring rippled out from the center, vibrating the water’s surface until the wave reached the crystalline walls.

Another ripple spread through the shimmering membrane, this one bringing with it proper imagery. The Slumbering Vale, Vezta had called it, was a much more lively land than the Underworld. The realm was a vast, endless garden of soft, lush grasses and sprawling fields of flowers. The undoubtedly fragrant smell of the fields didn’t pass through the portal, but Arkk could still almost taste the strong floral air on the tip of his tongue. Above the garden, the starry expanse in its clear sky was stuck in a smooth transition from twilight to a gentle night, never quite reaching it.

A small warning note in the back of Arkk’s mind alerted him to an alteration to Fortress Al-Mir, one he had not sanctioned.

One of the pedestals within Fortress Al-Mir’s temple room, formerly vacant, now held a statue. This one held an aged man, clean-shaved, slumped in a small, simple chair. His head, topped by a crown, rested against one of his shoulders. Unlike the other statues, his eyes were closed, sleeping, while cradling a humanoid skull as if it were a cloth doll given to a child. He looked entirely at peace as if nothing could possibly disturb him from his rest.

The Eternal Silence. God of sleep, rest, peace, and death.

“It worked!” Zullie said, breaking the silence in the portal room. “And everything appears stable.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Dakka said.

Zullie huffed. “These portals use the Lock and Key’s power. I can see that,” she said with an offended wrinkle on her nose. “It won’t last forever though. Without Fortress Al-Mir to sustain the portal magically, it will shut down when the glowstones run out of power. We should hurry.”

“Stop,” Arkk said, tone flat as he clamped a hand on Zullie’s shoulder to stop her from skipping through the portal. “First, how long will the portal last? Can it be reopened?”

Morvin crouched near an array of glowstones linked to the archway via ritual circles and answered for Zullie. “I’ll have better numbers after a few minutes, but at the current rate of drain—assuming it doesn’t change—I would guess an hour? Give or take ten minutes.”

“No reason why we can’t reopen it,” Zullie said. “Just like opening it the first time. We will have to recharge the glowstones—”

“Which takes a fair amount of time,” Arkk said, frowning as he looked over the glowing stones. The glowstones they were using to power this could have launched dozens of bombardment spells. It would take several days to process them through the Underworld charging rituals.

“Yes, but it is possible.”

Just as he had done with the Underworld, Arkk conjured a lesser servant. The slopping mess of oily mass looked up at him with a multitude of eyes, awaiting his command. So he gave it one. He sent it through the portal’s threshold.

With the Underworld, he had been able to feel the creature on the other side and even give it commands to return. The same was true here. But he stopped it before it could come back.

“Shut the portal down.”

“What? But—”

“Shut it down,” Arkk said, looking at Morvin. “And then start it back up.”

Morvin hesitated a moment, looking to Zullie, then looked back to Arkk. “The starting procedure cost ten percent of the magical reserves held in the glow—”

“I don’t care.”

Morvin sighed but started carrying out Arkk’s order. If it took a chunk of magic off the top just to get the portal started, it would reduce the time they could spend in the Slumbering Vale today. But he wasn’t about to step through a portal without knowing that it could be turned back on again. He’d be damned if he ended up trapped on the other side.

It took a few minutes. The rippling of the archway stilled and the image faded. Slowly, the shimmering membrane disappeared as well. As soon as the last bit of glowing light in the runes around the archway diminished to nothing, Morvin and Gretchen got started turning it back on.

The entire time, Arkk focused on the lesser servant. It sat on the other side, trembling and bubbling as they were wont to do. He might have described its movements as agitated and worried but, from possessing one just to test it out, he knew they didn’t feel much at all. They weren’t like Vezta or any normal being. Its movements did slow as the portal cut out entirely. Its eyes closed and its tendrils slowly settled in the grassy garden.

Perhaps the distance across planes, without the portal active, reduced the amount of magic it could siphon from Fortress Al-Mir? It was still alive, so Arkk wasn’t too concerned.

Before long, the portal shimmered and rippled and the image of the Slumbering Vale’s garden spread out before him once again. Arkk gave it the command to return.

It jolted, eyes blinking open. It looked around, bleary, as if it had just been awoken from a long slumber.

Which… somewhat made sense but also didn’t at the same time. Lesser servants did not sleep or seem to tire at all. Some of the servants down in Fortress Al-Mir’s gold mine had been working non-stop since he first set them to the task months ago. It had been… over half a year? Or close to it. He had never once seen them stop to rest.

But this was the domain of the god of sleep, among other things. If a little exhaustion was the only side effect of being there—and not those other things—then that was probably the best outcome.

“How long will it stay open now?” Arkk asked, looking at Morvin.

“Forty… No. Thirty… five minutes?”

“We have fifteen minutes,” Arkk said, addressing the room at large. “Savren, you remain here in case anything goes wrong. You’re in charge of getting the portal up and running again. Zullie, you’re with me. Dakka, have half your team follow us through, half stay—”

“Why stay?”

“Two reasons. First, it is a low possibility, but it is a possibility nonetheless that someone could attack us here. Second,” Arkk nodded toward the lesser servant who was still a little sluggish. “If we all decide to lie down for a nap on the other side, I need people who are strong enough to drag us back as fast as possible. No sleeping,” he said with emphasis to the rest of the group. “And no venturing far. Stay in clear view of the portal at all times until we’re a little more certain of how things work over there. The objective is hopefully to find some object—any object—that might hold a bit of the Eternal Silence’s power. That might be an enchanted dagger, it might be a flower. Everyone clear on objectives and rules?”

Arkk waited, looking around. Nobody voiced any objections or questions.

“And me?”

Arkk turned to Ilya, hesitating. He wanted to tell her to stay here. It was the safer side of the portal. But… “Your choice.”

“I’ll be with you,” she said, eyes firm. “But are you sure it is a good idea for you to go over first?”

“A leader has to lead,” he said with a smile. “Besides, I’m curious myself. And the lesser servant survived. Now come, we’re wasting our valuable time.”

Arkk stepped up to the portal threshold and paused. Despite his words to Ilya, he was a little hesitant. To start with, he reached a hand through. Everything felt entirely normal. There was a bit of a tingle right at the membrane but nothing unpleasant beyond. Taking a full step forward, Arkk journeyed to his second alternate plane.

Or third, if he counted the encounter with Xel’atriss.

The first thing he noticed was not, surprisingly, the smell. There was a smell, it was true. A faint and far subtler—quite pleasing, in fact—scent of flowers. He couldn’t quite identify the type of flower, which made sense given that this was a whole other world. But the thing that stood out was the sound.

Or the utter lack of sound.

There wasn’t a hint of rustling in the flowers or the crunch of brush underneath his feet. Breathing in a deep waft of the air, he couldn’t even hear the rush of air through his nose. He turned to Ilya, who stepped through at his side, and opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Ilya opened her mouth but, after a moment, snapped her jaw shut. She grabbed his shirt and forced him back through the portal.

“Can I—” Ilya sagged in relief. “I was worried for a second there.”

“Communication in the other world might be difficult. It seems the Lord of Silence takes that title seriously,” Arkk announced to the room at large. “For today, during our short venture there, that shouldn’t matter too much. Long-term postings might have issues. There will be no audible warning when it is time to return so ensure you are checking regularly. If you don’t think you can manage that, don’t come.”

He looked around once to ensure that everyone heard. Then, he turned back to the portal and stepped through.

The silence hit him like a rush of wind. Or, perhaps, the noise was drawn from him in a rush of wind. However the Eternal Silence’s land worked, Arkk didn’t think he would be spending as much time in it as in the Underworld. It was… eerie.

Beautiful, he could admit. The endless stretch of vaguely blue-green tinted fields of flowers and brush. It all looked… cared for. As if it hadn’t grown naturally. At the same time, it wasn’t sculpted and designed. There was overgrowth in some areas and undergrowth in others. Someone had guided the growth of the land without restricting it, allowing it to grow as it saw fit.

Oddly, despite how far he could see, he couldn’t see any sign of habitation. The Underworld held a great number of settlements strewn throughout its lands. They were ruins now, true, but it didn’t feel that different from the regular world. He could easily imagine people living in the Underworld a thousand years ago not so differently to how people lived in his world today.

The same was not true here. Which… maybe made sense. How many people would actually live in the realm of a god of death?

Then again, the plants, odd color aside, certainly looked alive.

It was a confusing place.

As the others started filing through the portal, taking their first looks around and invariably trying to talk, Arkk stepped up to a nearby bush of flowers. Large and vaguely circular petals, all with a blue hue, stuck off the end of a tall stalk, one that reached nearly as high as his shoulders despite the rest of the plant resting somewhere around his waist.

He did not lean forward to smell it. First of all, this was the land of the death god. Who knew what might happen? Second of all, he was fairly certain he could already smell it. The whole air was inundated with that floral scent and there weren’t many other obvious sources.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed one of the orcs that had followed them into the portal had no such reservations. Raff’el leaned forward with his helmet off and, before Arkk or anyone else could stop him, pressed his nose right into the flower’s petals.

He pulled back, looking awfully satisfied with that blissful look on his face, and then promptly toppled backward without a sound.

Dakka and Klepp’at rushed over, the former looking irritated and the latter looking worried. The concern diminished from Klepp’at’s face the moment he started inspecting the fallen orc. He tried shaking him with increasingly more vigorous movements up until Dakka had enough. She lashed out, swinging her gauntleted fist.

She pulled back right at the last moment, swinging her arm back to her chest.

Dakka wasn’t one to pull her punches. From the surprise on her face, Arkk guessed that she hadn’t intended to pull that one either. Her lips moved in what would have been a loud click of her tongue had any sound in this realm been possible. She looked around for just a moment before hefting up a rather large rock.

She let it go, letting it fall in utter silence. Right over Raff’el’s face.

That woke the orc up. Somewhat. He looked around, startled, but upon seeing nothing but the two orcs hovering over him, that blissful look took hold once again and he started to drift off despite the blood dripping from his now crooked nose.

Dakka curled her lips, showing off her tusks, before looking up to Arkk with a shrug.

He just thumbed back to the portal, prompting the two orcs to carry off their drowsy companion. Hopefully, that wore off in time. If not… He would have to figure something out later. Frankly, Raff’el was lucky that the plant hadn’t killed him outright.

Zullie, somehow having watched the exchange with her lack of eyes, promptly started miming out a game of charades to Morvin and Gretchen. The two went over to one of the nearby bushes. Morvin, cautiously, started clipping off flowers for obvious later experimentation while Gretchen worked to pull an entire bush from the ground, presumably to grow them in the real world, if that was possible. As they worked, Zullie turned back to the portal archway on this side and started inspecting it.

She opened her mouth, holding out a hand with clear intent to cast a spell.

Arkk had to suppress a yawn as he watched. Domain of sleep indeed.

The silence of the world didn’t let Zullie speak a single syllable. Frustration quickly etched its way onto her face. She tried twice more, perhaps thinking that verbalizing the words wasn’t necessary. That only led to more frustration that quickly culminated in her crouching down in front of the portal and drawing a wooden dowel from her robes. She started scribing out a ritual circle on the ground, glaring at it the whole time.

Arkk shook his head and looked away, only to spot something he hadn’t noticed before. A peculiar pair of trees stood not far from Arkk with something slung between them. He hadn’t noticed them before despite their relative proximity. Curious, Arkk approached, making sure to keep in full view of the portal at all times.

A net had been tied to the trunk of either tree in such a way that it formed a rather appealing hammock. The exhaustion in the atmosphere couldn’t go unnoticed. If he had wandered here unaware of the nature of this world, he might have decided that it would be the perfect time for a nap.

Arkk slapped his hands into his cheeks, sparking a jolt of adrenaline to stave off the sleep.

Rather than touch the hammock—he knew he sometimes made foolish decisions but he still liked to think of himself as smarter than Raff’el, at least—Arkk called for the lesser servant once again. It slithered and slopped its way over and, at Arkk’s command, it reached out and touched the netting.

It didn’t die. Nor did it immediately fall asleep.

That was good so far. But just to check, Arkk had it climb up into the hammock.

Which… wasn’t exactly an easy operation to carry out. As ropes woven together with large gaping holes between the strands, the hammock presented a certain challenge to a being made of tar and slime. The lesser servant, in its attempts to squelch its way into the hammock, just kept sinking right through it.

After the third failure, Arkk had it stop its pointless task. Instead, he had it bite into the tree trunk right next to the rope.

Trees, as it turned out, did not make a sound even with a dozen people around to hear them fall.

The lesser servant did the same with the other tree, allowing Arkk to lift the hammock up and over the fresh stump. He coiled it up, handed it off to the lesser servant—who managed to carry it despite being unable to sit on it—and slowly looked around the crystal archway.

More than a few of his team looked like they were already worn out after a hard day of working. Voll’ey and Frezza were standing upright but their heads were bobbing as if they were trying to stay awake. Gretchen had completely fallen asleep and was in the process of being dragged back to the portal by two other orcs. Dakka looked to be sustaining herself through pure anger at her own exhaustion. Even Zullie kept yawning every few seconds.

Ilya…

Arkk’s heart skipped a beat as he looked around, failing to spot Ilya. That beat steadied out when he noticed her next to another hammock tied up between a pair of trees. She wasn’t looking at it with an analytical eye but rather the eyes of someone wanting to close them and never open them again.

Arkk rushed over and grabbed her by the arm before she could commit to climbing into the hammock. She looked at him with half-lidded eyes. The sluggishness of her mind took a long minute to fade away along with several shakes of her head. She opened her mouth.

And, of course, could not speak.

Arkk jerked his hand back toward the portal.

He didn’t know how long they had been here but they had stayed long enough.

 

 

 

An iridescent crystal with an odd yellow hue sat on the table, held upright by three nail-like prongs crafted down in Fortress Al-Mir’s smithy. There were no glowstones in the room. Nothing that might contaminate it with ambient magic. The only light came from a set of three oil lamps, slowly burning away. The small flames flickered and wavered, sending the iridescent gleam up and down the smooth sides of the crystal.

“The gem matches the portal archway,” Hale said, staring at the crystal. “Like, close enough that if I didn’t know better, I’d have thought you hacked a chunk off it.”

“Portal archway?” Sylvara asked, looking at the small girl.

“I believe you sat in on a meeting or two where our access to the Underworld came up?” Zullie said, empty eyes locked onto the crystal. “Arkk never actually showed you it, did he.”

“Such secrets should strictly stay shielded from the scrutiny of your Inquisition.”

Sylvara eyed Savren but didn’t comment. She looked back to the crystal. “An archivist who frequently helped Vrox and I during our research gave me this the day I left. She said it would help, though she didn’t say what with. Hearing what you have to say on it makes the inquisitor in me wonder how an archivist got her hands on some kind of… planar shard?”

“Oh,” Zullie said, leaning forward with an almost maniacal grin on her eyeless face. “It’s far more than just a bit of errant planar magic. I have seen things. Those portals? They were created by Xel’atriss, Lock and Key, as gifts to the worlds. Most, I imagine, were destroyed in the years following the Calamity. Those that aren’t have been long buried, lost and forgotten for a thousand years. So, yes. Quite interesting that an archivist got her hands on a piece of one. An active piece. Now that it is out of that case, I can… well, I can see Xel’atriss, Lock and Key’s power radiating off that thing.”

“It has a rune on it,” Hale said, more for Zullie’s sake than anyone else’s. “A solitary dot within a larger circle.”

Zullie let out a long hum, tapping a thin finger on the rim of her glasses. “Doesn’t match any of the runes on our portal, does it?”

“No,” Hale said.

Arkk drew in a breath as he looked over the research team. He had asked Vezta about the rune upon first seeing it in Sylvara’s hands. “That is supposedly the symbol for the Eternal Silence. God of rest, sleep, peace… and death. One of three members of the Pantheon that Vezta suggested was most opposed to the Heart of Gold. The others being the Eternal Permafrost and the Jailer of the Void.”

“Rest, peace, sleep, and death,” Ilya repeated, speaking for the first time since this meeting began. She expressed confusion as to why she had been invited given her lack of magical knowledge. Arkk mostly just wanted her at his side. It felt like they were always apart these days. “Those traits oppose gold?”

“The Heart of Gold holds dominion over wealth, possessions, and—allegedly—love. I’ve not seen evidence for that last one but that’s what Vezta said. Material, worldly things, in other words.”

“Greed,” Savren cut in.

Arkk started to nod but paused. “According to Vezta, followers of the Heart of Gold often… well… engaged in violence—to put it lightly—against those who insinuated they followed a god of greed. But yes. The Eternal Silence’s focus on death and sleep is more immaterial—you can’t carry your wealth into a dream, after all. Vezta’s words, not mine.”

“I see,” Sylvara said, not sounding wholly convinced.

Arkk didn’t blame her. “Not every member of the Pantheon has a direct opposition like fire to ice,” he said with a light shrug. “That’s probably why she suggested three different gods. But having this crystal here now… Well, it can’t hurt to try with this one.”

“That’s… convenient. And raises more questions for the archivist. Did she know?” Sylvara murmured to herself. “Perhaps Vrox mentioned something to her. Or she just saw where our research was headed and knew this crystal was sitting somewhere in the archives.” Sylvara shook her head, focusing her red eyes back on Zullie. “I’ll interrogate—or thank—her the next time I’m in Chernlock. For now, I presume you know of a way to use this? I know how to craft Binding Agents, but I need materials infused with opposing power.”

“Yes,” Zullie said. “We—

Arkk interrupted, “No. We can’t.”

“It will be simple,” Zullie said, ruffling her robes as she folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t know how the Abbey gets their material, but all we have to do is replace the keystone rune of the portal with this. We walk in, find a few artifacts of the Eternal Silence, and walk out. Sylvara performs her artifice. Then we have a weapon to use against the avatar.”

Arkk let out a long sigh. “And if we can’t turn the portal back to the Underworld? Olatt’an and Ilya’s mother are still out there,” he said, giving Ilya a firm nod of his head. “Even if they weren’t, if we were to lose access to the Underworld, we lose our ability to charge up glowstones for siege magics. We lose additional artifacts from the Cloak of Shadows. And who knows what might happen to the Protector.”

“Having harnessed hidden insights from the minds of the multi-linked, I can confidently claim that the magic melding them moves beyond mere material planes.”

Arkk shot Savren a look, both in annoyance at having his argument undermined and in curiosity at how Savren felt confident in how the Protector’s mind linked together. Before he could ask, however, Zullie cut in, thumping a hand against the table.

“Think of what we gain! Whole new artifacts from a whole new seat of the Pantheon. Think of how great the shadow forged gear is and imagine outfitting another squad with Eternal Silence flavor scythes.”

“The Eternal Silence is the god of peace,” Arkk said with a frown. “Do you think we’ll find weapons?”

“Also the god of death.”

Arkk didn’t have a counterpoint for that. “Olatt’an and Alya are still out there along with their expedition,” he said. That was, by and large, the most important reason to not proceed at this point.

“Damn right,” Ilya added, shooting a glare at Zullie. “We might have had a little falling out, but I don’t want her banished to another plane for the rest of her life. Elves live very long lives.”

“If they were back,” Arkk continued, “I might consider it, but they aren’t. We’re not going to play with their lives. Even if you’re confident that you can switch the portal back and forth, I am not.”

Zullie would have glared had she her eyes. Instead, she pressed her lips into thin lines.

“But,” Ilya said, raising a finger. “Don’t we have another choice?”

Arkk looked at the elf, eyes trailing down her pointed ear to the thoughtful look on her face. It was the look of someone who just had an epiphany. But Arkk wasn’t having the same epiphany and, judging by the looks on everyone else’s faces, nobody else understood either.

“What do you mean?”

“The other archway.”

“Other archway?”

Ilya nodded. “Early on, when we were still looking for jobs for the orcs to do to keep them out of trouble, we accepted that request for expeditionary escorts out to some pyramid in the highlands. I remember we got a letter from them right around the time we were in Moonshine Burg dealing with the slavers,” she said with notable distaste. “The expedition found a big mural that seemed to detail some history of the world—I don’t really remember that bit—but they also mentioned a big crystalline archway. Isn’t that the same portal structure?”

Arkk stared at Ilya, blinking a few times. If he were being completely honest, he had forgotten that entirely. He did remember receiving a letter sometime in the aftermath of the inquisition expedition where he had acquired Agnete as an ally and fended off Vrox and Chronicler Greesom. Had that mentioned an archway?

Closing his eyes, he focused a moment. Somewhere in his study was a small leather-bound folder. And in that folder…

There.

Opening his eyes, he looked down at the freshly teleported letter. He skimmed through it until he came across one specific passage.

What we found was unlike anything I have witnessed in my thirty-nine years. A complex labyrinth of corridors and rooms. Most were, regrettably, empty. Their contents decayed beyond any reasonable identification. The full details are attached but I will call special attention to three rooms in particular. One, a room with a large crystalline archway, covered in strange patterns and designs. I have shipped off sketches of the designs to the Cliff Academy in the hopes of uncovering the nature or purpose of the archway—I am not a spellcaster myself nor were any on our expedition—but they have yet to return my missives. I will send another letter to you with their results if they ever come.

He had never received another letter. The war had started soon after, so that wasn’t particularly surprising. The war had disrupted almost everything. But there it was, clear as day. A detail he had forgotten that Ilya kept in mind.

Another archway. Not even that far away.

Arkk leaned back, taking his eyes off the letter to stare at Ilya with a rising feeling in his chest. “Have I ever mentioned how much I love you?”

Red flooded into Ilya’s pointed ears. “Not now,” she hissed.

“Later then. For now… I’ve got some ritual circles to scribe out to get us out to this place. Zullie, you think this will work?”

“You never told me about another archway,” she said with a small frown.

“I’ve always got a lot going on. I’m sure I’ve forgotten more things than I remember.”

“Which is why you need to tell me,” she snapped, then sighed. “As for whether it will work… It won’t be connected to Fortress Al-Mir, but if we charge up a crate of glowstones before… Ah, but the state of the portal might be… I’ll have to see it to be certain, but I’ll give it a tentative possibly right now.”

“Better than what we had before,” Arkk said. “Meet back here in two hours. I’ll be done by then.”

After a few more than two hours, a time spent poring over maps and tracking down a few of the orcs who had gone on the expedition, Arkk finally stepped out of a teleportation circle in the Mystakeen highlands and took a deep breath. The air was fresh and the skies were clear. The temperature was a bit crisp. He wouldn’t want to stand outside for long periods without a heavier coat, but he wasn’t planning on staying out in the sun.

They were a fair trek west of Elmshadow, almost directly at the midpoint between the burg and Evestani’s border.

During Evestani’s first march across the Duchy, the army had avoided the highlands, choosing the easier, less mountainous routes through the land. Arkk was hoping that continued, but even if it didn’t, they should have at least two unobstructed weeks before Evestani neared the mountains.

Arkk stepped outside the ritual circle, allowing the rest of the research crew to follow one at a time, and looked over the surroundings. Tall trees grew thick enough that just trying to walk through them would have been nearly impossible were it not for the flagstone pathways set through what looked to be ruins of a rather small village. Even those paths were overgrown with brush and shrubs.

It was a rather strange place for a village, in Arkk’s opinion. Set on the top of one of the highland mountains, it had a clear view down the narrow valleys and across to other mountains in the land formation. There was no obvious source of water and no room for crops. Any normal village would have failed here.

This one had failed, but not before growing a little larger than Langleey. The remnants were all cobblestone buildings that lacked roofs. Presumably, they would have been made from straw or thatch that would have rotted away over the centuries. Before then… It had likely been supported by the fortress.

At the center of the village ruins was a black marble ziggurat that looked practically brand new. A smooth monolith with no seams and no openings, just as described in Ramis Phonk’s letter. Ilya sent off a letter to the Historical Curator of the Crown while Arkk had been locating the structure, inquiring about additional details, results of various research, and anything else Phonk might think of, but they probably wouldn’t hear a response anytime soon.

“Everyone’s here.”

Arkk turned to Ilya, gave her a nod, and looked out over the rest of the group.

Sylvara stood, back straight with her gloved hand on her hip, eying the ruins of the village and the ziggurat. Just behind her, Zullie rubbed her hands up and down her arms, shivering with Hale acting as a guide at her side. Savren, accompanied by Morvin and Gretchen, was amid a long yawn—he had decided on napping before coming out here, not sure how long they would be working. In addition to the research team, Arkk had pulled Dakka and her team from Elmshadow to primarily act as guards, just in case they did manage to open a portal and it held something hostile on the other side. A few others, orcs and humans mostly, were present as well to assist with heavy lifting or other grunt work.

Finally, Gratt’an stood just a little behind Ilya. The tan-skinned orc looked around with different eyes compared to everyone else present. The others looked around the area with unfamiliar expressions on their faces, the looks of people first visiting a new location. Gratt’an’s burly face was a lot more flat and uninterested in the surroundings.

For one simple reason. He had been here before.

“This way,” Gratt’an said, heading off toward one of the overgrown pathways.

Arkk, wanting to make sure nobody got lost or left behind, let out a sharp whistle to ensure he had everyone’s attention. A simple gesture had them all trudging after him.

“Everything seemed like a bust,” Gratt’an said as he turned down a path that led alongside the ziggurat. “Was just looking for a bit of loot. Anything to make the trip that much more valuable, you know?”

“Find anything?”

“Few stray coins. Not gold. Nothing worth nothing. Shopkeep in a town on the way back said he wouldn’t take them.”

“Shame,” Arkk said.

“Right shame. But thanks to that, I found this,” Gratt’an said as he stepped into a roofless building. It was a bit larger than most of the others. Maybe a storehouse? Or simply the entryway.

At the back of the cobblestone structure, there was a doorway with a large door crafted from the same black marble that the ziggurat was made from.

“We had to pry it open,” Gratt’an said, glaring at it. “Took six of us all heaving against it. Not fun, but we got it.”

“Good work,” Arkk said, peering down into the darkness. Everyone present had a few glowstones—the lesser ones for lighting rather than the large ones for spellcasting. He had known it would be dark but…

Just looking down the stairs, he was struck with a vague sense of nostalgia for his first visit to Fortress Al-Mir, before he had contracted with it and lit everything up. At the time, he had been concerned about the imminent attack on Langleey Village. Too concerned to appreciate the place.

Following after Gratt’an, he felt he could appreciate this place even more, now that he knew what it was and how old it was.

“It’s different from Al-Mir,” Ilya said, running her fingers along the walls. “Everything is smooth and glossy. No maze patterns at all.”

“The Heart probably belonged to a different god,” Arkk said, noting the floor’s lack of any pattern. “Vezta might have been able to tell us who. I’m not sure.”

Vezta was still at Leda’s walking tower. Arkk hadn’t recalled her or Priscilla for this, even though he probably should have.

There were too many things going on at once. He had to split his resources across Mystakeen. It was the same reason why Agnete wasn’t here. She was in Cliff alongside Claire, both of them being his best shot at preventing a demon from rampaging across the land if Katja’s diplomacy fell short.

Gratt’an let out a brief grunt, stopping at the bottom of the stairs where the corridor split off. “Good. They’re still here,” he said holding his glowstone up to the corner. A few white marks adorned the wall along with arrows pointing down the various passages. “Those historians left marks here to help find their way around. Place is a worse maze than home. Wouldn’t have wanted to try to figure out where to go without them.

“These are the ones we want,” he said as he jammed his finger next to a large chalk archway on the wall. “Just follow the arrows and we’ll be there.”

Sure enough, Gratt’an knew what he was talking about. It was a bit further along than Arkk expected but they still arrived at the archway without fail.

A large, crystalline archway covered in numerous runes in a room almost exactly the same as the one in Fortress Al-Mir.

“Perfect,” Zullie hissed, eyeless sight roaming over the arch. “This should work.”

“Arkk… Arkk…”

Arkk stirred, feeling a hand shaking his knee. He was sitting mostly upright but reclined back against something soft with his eyes closed. Sleeping? He hadn’t meant to fall asleep.

The hand on his knee gave him a hard pinch, twisting his skin underneath his pants.

“Ilya? What—”

“Not Ilya.”

Arkk’s eyes snapped open, recognizing the voice.

Hale stood in front of him, twin tails of black hair looking far longer than she used to keep them. She lifted an eyebrow, giving him a pointed look.

“Hale,” he said, leaning forward. Discreetly patting himself down, making sure he was still all in one piece, he glanced behind him. Ilya was in the same stone chair—the padding, if it ever had any, had long since withered away—sleeping as well. She stirred as he moved but didn’t open his eyes. “How long was I asleep?”

Hale shrugged. “You left us to the work about… five hours ago? Ilya said she would check on you an hour after after that. Neither of you came back.”

“Right…” Arkk said, rubbing his forehead. “Because we were…” He trailed off, frowning at Hale. “Plotting.”

“Uh-huh. Zullie is ready for you.”

“Ready?” Arkk asked, buttoning up his tunic. “Ready for what?”

“To activate the portal.”

“Already?” Arkk asked, suddenly feeling far more awake. “How long was I asleep?” he mumbled again. It had taken months of off-and-on work to get the first portal opened. If he had watched them work for the first few hours before fatigue caught up to him. It just felt like he never got a minute to sleep these days. If they had kept working through the evening…

It couldn’t have been more than half a day since they got here.

“She wanted to open it right away but Savren stopped her, saying it would be best if you were present.”

“Good man,” Arkk said, only to pause. “Never thought I’d say that.”

“Shall I tell them you’re on your way?” Hale asked before leaning to peer at Ilya. “Or do you want a little more time to straighten your clothing?”

Arkk pivoted in the chair again. Ilya’s tunic had lifted, exposing her waist. The once smooth skin was marred somewhat, a result of his poor attempts at healing her combined with Hale’s efforts to better her, leaving her with some plated scales cascading down from her chest to her belly button. He couldn’t help himself. He reached out and gave her a light poke just above the hip.

Ilya jolted awake with a harpy-like squawk. Entirely on reflex and certainly not on purpose, she shoved him out of the chair, throwing him to the floor. Her silver eyes darted about, first finding Hale, who took a step back, before landing on Arkk. “You,” she growled.

Arkk chuckled, feeling better than he had since hearing the Prince was a potential demon summoner.

“I’ll tell them ten minutes,” Hale said, backing out of the side room.

 

 

 

“It is quite simple,” Priscilla said, giving Leda a light push against her back. “Just reach out and take it. Push a little magic into it—”

“I don’t have magic. No fairy does.”

“You have magic from your contract with Arkk. That will work for this.”

Leda looked away from the shadowy orb that hovered above a narrow pedestal and looked at the dragonoid woman. “Why can’t you do this?”

“I said why,” Priscilla said with a bit of impatience leaking into her voice. “I can’t without killing myself, you, and anything else in sight. I want to. You don’t know how much I wish I could. But I can’t.”

“But—”

“This is what you want. It is a magical artifact that amplifies magic. And it will feed that magic back to you. Perhaps you’ll even regain proper flight. At the very least, you’ll be able to teleport around like Arkk does—even in Arkk’s territory as long as you don’t cut your contract with him. Now,” Priscilla took hold of Leda’s shoulders, digging her icy claws into Leda’s skin just enough to make the fairy wince. With a light shove that nevertheless sent Leda sailing toward the orb, Priscilla continued, “Activate it.”

Leda didn’t mean to, but the shove was enough to make her bump right into the orb. A spark jumped from her arm to the orb, a little burst of unintentional magic quickly spreading throughout channels and pathways built into the orb. It was like a large, spherical ritual circle.

Leda tried to pull away. The orb pulled at her magic, siphoning it from where her arm touched its cold surface. But she couldn’t free herself. It was as if some heavy vice had clamped down around her wrist, pinning her to the orb. She tried to wrench her whole body away, only for Priscilla to keep her firmly in place.

The temperature plummeted. It felt like ice against her arm, spreading both up to her shoulder and down to her fingertips. Leda let out a yelp as the chill reached up her neck.

A great thump resounded from the sphere. It moved, pulsing like a beating heart. That slight movement freed Leda from its grasp, sending her cartwheeling through the air. Leda’s wings beat furiously, barely keeping her from slamming into the wall of the chamber.

Priscilla looked up to her with a grin that showed off her sharp teeth. Leda wasn’t sure how she was staring at the right spot. So many times when Priscilla spoke, she wouldn’t quite look in the right spot. But now, Priscilla’s head was angled perfectly toward Leda.

Leda drifted higher in the room, keeping well out of reach while rubbing the numbness out of her arm. It was only when she started feeling her fingers again that Leda realized she was up near the domed ceiling of the room, far higher than fairies could normally hover. The shock of it jolted her out of her rhythm, sending her spiraling back down to the floor.

Priscilla caught her before she could hit the ground, using just a single hand around Leda’s waist.

Something had changed with Priscilla. The normally white-blue ice that covered her eyes and much of her scales was tinged with red. Not blood. It was almost like someone had lit a fire in the room. In fact, looking around, Leda found the rest of the room changed as well. Everywhere she looked, a faint red hue coated everything.

“Success? Excellent. I wasn’t sure if a fairy would be able to contact with a Heart.”

“You weren’t… But you said—”

“Yes, yes. I say a lot of things. Not all of them are true. Close your eyes and try to feel the tower. We need to shut it down so that you can remove the Heart. Then we can get back.”

“Feel the tower? That doesn’t make any sense. How am I supposed… to…”

As soon as Leda thought about it, the entirety of the tower unfolded in front of her. It was like she could see every part of it at once. Even in the part where she was, she could see herself as Priscilla gently lowered her to the ground. It wasn’t as big a tower as the one that had been perched out near the portal entrance or the tower Arkk had constructed back in the regular world, but it still had enough floors that Leda started to feel dizzy as she tried to think about it all.

“Good,” Priscilla said, making Leda focus directly on the sharp teeth in her mouth. “Just listen to what I say. I won’t lead you wrong.”

“You just said you lie a lot.”

“Only when it benefits me. Now, first, let’s make sure this tower won’t topple with us inside when we remove the Heart…”

“Slave Natum is the spell I use,” Arkk said, demonstrating with a wave of his hand. One of those mounds of oily black flesh and far, far too many eyes dragged itself into existence at his side.

Leda shuddered. They weren’t a common sight around populated areas of Fortress Al-Mir and she was glad for that. Neither Arkk nor Priscilla looked visibly upset at its existence. Of course, Arkk was the one who summoned them and Priscilla couldn’t actually see them.

Leda shuddered again. “I have to conjure one of those?” she said, trying not to sound like she was whining.

When Arkk had rescued her from the Duke’s dungeons months ago now, Leda hadn’t thought anything would come of it. Finding out she could cast some small amount of magic had been wonderous. Being thrust into a war had been the opposite. Being assigned the chief minder of the blind dragonoid ranked somewhere in between.

Now she had gotten her hands on a powerful magical artifact the likes of which only three were known to exist. And two belonged to Arkk. He wasn’t trying to take this third one from her—which Leda wasn’t sure how she felt about. She could break the contract with it. Apparently without even ending up like Priscilla—who had broken far more than just her contract in trying to extract every iota of power the Hearts possessed. But now…

Leda had somehow gotten herself a promotion from dragonoid minder to some kind of sub-commander of Arkk’s free company.

Another thing she wasn’t sure about.

But uncertainties aside, the power of the orb was… somewhat intoxicating. She could feel the magic swirling about within her as she repeated the incantation. It burst forth from her fingertips, forcing reality to align with her intentions of summoning a servant to help her manage her new position.

She recoiled as she felt that coalesced magic approach her, only for her revulsion to turn to curiosity as she noticed the form of the servant.

It wasn’t one of those oily monsters that Arkk summoned. Rather, it was some kind of… hollow being. Transparent and barely visible, but roughly humanoid.

Leda looked up to find Arkk just as confused as she was. Priscilla’s expression hadn’t changed. She probably couldn’t tell the difference without touching them.

Vezta, however, leaned forward. Her glowing yellow eyes, set across her entire body, analyzed the new form in mere moments. “An adequate servant,” she said, “it will be able to carry out the necessary tasks, even if it isn’t as capable as my kin.”

“Why does it look like that?” Arkk asked. “Did something go wrong?”

“No. It is simply a [HEART] gifted from the Cloak of Shadows. The servants it allows will align more to the preferences of Lady Shadows than the beings from the [STARS] that Xel’atriss, Lock and Key prefers.”

“I still summon… uh… normal lesser servants even after taking over the new Heart,” Arkk said with a clear question in his tone.

“Al-Mir’s heart is far stronger than that of a walking fortress. It takes precedence. In any case, it is nothing to worry about. They may not be able to dig well, but that shouldn’t matter for her purposes. They’ll build and maintain a tower just as well as anything else.” Vezta paused, turning her yellow eyes to Leda. “There are only two problems.”

Leda shrank down, drawing her wings tight behind her back. She didn’t like the look the monstrous woman was giving her.

“The first is one of trustworthiness.”

Leda winced at Vezta’s tone, only to be surprised when Arkk stepped between them.

“Leda hasn’t done anything to make me think I can’t trust her.”

“Ah, but the fairy has lacked any sort of power until now. And,” Vezta continued, shifting several of her eyes to Priscilla while still keeping a close watch on Leda. “We all know how hard power is to resist. Don’t we, former contractor?”

Priscilla snarled, gnashing her teeth. That forced Arkk to move between Vezta and the angry dragonoid. A brave move, considering Priscilla could snap his outstretched arms as easily as Leda could break a tiny twig.

“That’s enough,” Arkk said, eyes blazing red.

Vezta took a step back with a differential bow while Priscilla just stood in place, clearly seething.

“All I mean to ask is: Are you sure you would rather leave it in her hands rather than take it for yourself?”

“I have enough to manage as is,” Arkk said. “If Leda wants the position, that is acceptable. Otherwise, I think I would rather hand it off to someone else to use. It’s up to her.”

Leda drew her hands into tight fists, taking in a deep breath. She could do this. She wanted to do this. Just the way the magic swirled around within her chest, ready to be unleashed instead of having to force it out… She doubted it was like what her ancestors felt before the Calamity, but it was as close as she was likely to get.

“You can count on me.”

Arkk stared a moment as if sizing her up. It only lasted an instant. He probably wasn’t even aware of the brief consideration he took. But he ended up smiling at her, nodding his head. “Good. Then what was the other problem, Vezta?”

The greater servant, whose eyes did not take on a kindlier look, let out an almost disappointed sigh. “With what funds are we going to use to construct another tower? The treasury is diminished and the fairy has no wealth of her own.”

Arkk’s good mood turned pensive once again. He hummed a moment before the red light in his eyes shone ever so slightly brighter. “I’ve got a few ideas. Leave it to me.”

He vanished, teleporting away without another word.

That left Leda in the uncomfortable company of a seething dragonoid and whatever Vezta was feeling at the moment. The look she was giving Leda was anything but kind.

“It would be wise to keep any thoughts of betrayal in check,” Vezta said, turning her body toward the door without turning her head. Her eyes were still focused entirely on Leda. “Arkk may be merciful. I am not,” she said as she left the room.

Leda shuddered, only to jump with a slight yelp as an icy hand dropped on her shoulder.

“Ignore the servant. She is jealous that she cannot contract with the Heart herself.”

Leda clamped down on a retort asking if Priscilla wasn’t in a similar position. So she just nodded her head and hoped that Arkk would be back sooner rather than later.

Leda watched with mixed feelings as the largest mound of gold she had ever seen just evaporated like a bucket of water left out in the middle of a hot day. That had been enough gold to make even a fairy like her into a minor noble. And it was just gone.

Around her, the shadowy servants she had summoned toiled away. It was strange watching them. They were little more than flat silhouettes—no matter the angle Leda looked at them from, they didn’t have any form—and yet, they moved about the shadowy orb, exuding building materials from their bodies. The first was a tall pedestal that matched the one where she had originally found the orb. After that, they spread out black, light-absorbing bricks across the ground, forming a proper floor.

Leda shivered in the chill spring wind. Having spent so long in the heat of the Underworld, even despite her proximity to Priscilla’s natural cool, the open air of the regular world felt especially cold against her skin. It didn’t help that there was nothing around.

Her tower wasn’t being built in the Cursed Forest or anywhere near Elmshadow. They were in the plains far south of Moonshine Burg. Far enough that only a dedicated scouting team would find it, but close enough that it could move there in a short amount of time.

It didn’t seem like a good idea to her, being out here without any real support. There were teleportation circles, but Arkk didn’t have another army to help support her if she was discovered out here. He didn’t have extra crystal balls that she could use to watch over the surroundings, he didn’t have a proper escape plan for if things did go wrong, and he didn’t have the focus to dedicate to her while he was worried about demons and armies approaching Elmshadow.

All he had for her was one of the creepy Protectors. A lumbering giant of a being compared to him. Leda shuddered, looking over at it. She was about as big as its foot. Its face, stiff chitin molded in a vague humanoid shape, was utterly incomprehensible. It just stared at the construction project, its wide eyes following those shadowy servants as they went about their task.

The construction was getting somewhere now. A large, circular chamber now fully encompassed the pedestal and the orb it held. The shadows were building outward and upward. All with hardly any input from Leda. It was like they knew what to do. Some exuded bricks underneath the existing structure, lifting it upward as they formed the top of the next room below. Others built on top of it, apparently unconcerned with the potential instability of the base being worked on. The rest worked on creating what would end up being legs for the eventual tower.

Even the orb chamber would only be a small corner of its floor, protected by thick layers of outer walls, empty space for stairs, and even more walls around it.

As the structure grew larger, Leda started noticing something. A magical tingle deep within her chest.

When she had first touched that orb, way back in the Underworld, she had felt the magical power within her just waiting to explode out. To be used. It had been overwhelming until they shut down that tower to move the orb back home, but now, it was on the rise again. With every brick laid, with every additional tile spreading the building out, she could feel a sudden jump in her heart.

It was a wonderful feeling.

Leda’s worries over the future started to give way to excitement and anticipation. She watched the shadowy servants, just waiting for them to form the next brick and join it to the rest of the structure.

“Is this how you feel all the time?” Leda asked, breaking the silence as she looked at Arkk.

His glowing red eyes turned to her. “Feel?” he asked, confused.

“Just… the magic. Every brick that goes down…” Leda licked her lips, looking back to the shadowy servants.

“Ah. The Heart makes me a much more powerful caster than most people. Is that what you mean?”

“Maybe,” Leda said, distracted. She didn’t think he got it at all. Was it because he was a human? Or maybe he had just gotten used to it. He had been at this for a long time, after all. Unless he didn’t get this feeling anymore.

Every brick that went down was a significant increase in power, but each was less than the one before it. Ten bricks would double a ten-brick floor, but ten more bricks after that would only add half the previous total. Ten after that would be even less. Arkk controlled the entirety of the Cursed Forest plus Elmshadow. A single brick for him would be nothing relative to the rest of it all.

It was almost disappointing to think about it like that.

On the other hand… What must it be like to control that vast territory? If two rooms were making her heart pound this hard, what would a whole forest feel like?

“Keep at it,” Arkk said, ignorant of her thoughts. “I need to get back and figure out how we’re going to handle things going forward.”

Leda grimaced, elation crashing down as she looked at the three others standing outside her slowly rising tower. “You’re leaving?”

Arkk looked at her, then smiled oh so kindly. “Vezta can answer any questions you might have,” he said, gesturing to his servant. “She helped me a lot in my early days. And Priscilla and the Protector won’t let you come to harm. If there is any sign of Evestani, they’ll all help get you out of here.”

Grimacing again, Leda deliberately avoided looking around. She did not want to meet the glowing yellow eyes of the servant, the iced-over face of the dragonoid, or… whatever the Protector was.

Though the latter was still staring at the shadowy servants, paying her little mind.

“Head inside, practice teleporting around, and whatever else you can think of. I’ll be back in the morning to check on the construction progress.”

“I… okay.”

Okay.

Leda closed her eyes. She needed to focus on the good. That magic that was building inside her. The spells she could now learn, now that she had access to such magic. And… Well, that was about it for the moment.

Magic.

Magic was good.

 

 

“Regrettably, none of the nabbed notables were notably high-ranking.”

Arkk turned away from Savren, looking at the two bound sailors they had rescued from the wreckage of the warships. One’s head lolled to his side as if the muscles in his neck just wouldn’t work properly despite his best attempts. A long string of drool hung from the bottom of his chin. The other looked more aware, but was caught in a loop of rocking back and forth. At least as much as she was able with the ropes tying her to the chair.

Their state disturbed Arkk. But it was his doing. His order. He had told Savren to get as much information from them as quickly as possible. Savren had no qualms about obliging.

“What did they know?”

“I presume you are probing particulars of the war and not wasting whiles on worthless wonders.”

Arkk shot Savren a glare. The warlock, while running a hand through his greasy hair, simply shrugged. “Yes,” Arkk said. “I’m not asking what they had for breakfast.”

“Dried fish and cheese,” Savren said as he held out a long piece of paper.

Arkk looked down at it, finding a list of prepared responses neatly organized by priority. Although Arkk thought he had gotten quite adept at piercing the meaning of Savren’s words through his curse, he was always happy to remove ambiguity through the written word, which was not affected by Savren’s curse.

He leaned back against the wall as he perused through.

Both were soldiers of the Eternal Empire. Arkk had never heard of such a place. It sat across the ocean, far to the north. Savren included a few small details of their homeland. Arkk skimmed past. He wasn’t interested in their culture or culinary preferences. Perhaps when they weren’t attacking him, he would be more interested, but for now, he was far more interested in what they could do.

The woman, Porcia ‘Chain’ Catena, was a canoness. And a cannoneer. As a canoness, she was some kind of religious leader for the ship. They did not worship the Golden Good, Heart of Gold, or any variation that the Golden Order revered. Rather, they simply believed in a figure known as the Empress.

Presumably the head of their Eternal Empire.

As a cannoneer, she was adept at wielding the warship’s broadside cannons.

The man, one Titus Bellator—known to his friends simply as ‘Wart’—was the ship’s quartermaster and logistic supervisor. It was his job to ensure that the ship had enough food, medicine, alchemical reagents, and whatever else was needed to sail around the world. He also played a crucial role in navigation. Because of that, Savren had been able to figure out the exact route the ship had taken to reach Cliff.

The ship, called the Pungis Victoriae, took about six weeks to sail from their homelands, meaning they had set off well before Arkk had taken Elmshadow back from Evestani. Neither knew why the Eternal Empire’s army had set off for war but both were utterly elated to be serving in their empire.

Which was just what Arkk didn’t need. More zealots.

Titus knew a few things beyond the realm of his ship, as a result of being a higher-ranked individual. “They set out with twenty-one warships?” Arkk said, raising an eyebrow. “And another thirty or so are supposedly on their way? How big is this empire?”

“Unknown,” Savren said with a shrug. “I know nearly nothing about neighboring nations; I know even less regarding remote realms.”

“What are they going to assault with those warships? The entire northern side of the Duchy borders the ocean, but it is all cliffsides and rough rocks. There are only a handful of villages up there.”

“I believe their boats were better built for bearing both bodies and belongings,” Savren said, pointing a finger halfway down the list he had given Arkk.

Sure enough, according to Titus’ memories, a good number of the warships had been hastily converted to full troop transports.

Which explained where the additions to Evestani’s army came from.

Skimming back down the remainder of the page, Arkk’s eyes jumped to one particular line. He read and reread it a dozen times over, just to make sure he was reading it correctly. “Every single one of their knights is a high-caliber spellcaster?”

“That is what the persuasive propaganda, published by their superiors, plainly points to. Among our captives, only the canoness commands casting.”

“So it could be false…” Though it was better to assume the worst and be pleasantly surprised if they all weren’t slinging powerful spells across the battlefield. It would explain the level of firepower those warships had unleashed upon Cliff. The constant volleys raining down upon the city would have exhausted any minor casters.

“Did you yet devise a detailed design for dispatching them?”

“I have a plan, yes. I’m waiting on a few things, but I hope to… isolate this incident as soon as possible. Some parts of the plan may change depending on whether or not Zullie’s assistants can put together that damaged ritual spell we recovered from their ship.”

“Shall I skillfully shift myself to spearhead that scheme?”

“No. That is a project that would be nice to have but unnecessary to the immediate plan. I need you on the inquisitor’s project.”

Sylvara was back at Fortress Al-Mir. She, Zullie, and Savren would hopefully have a proper countermeasure to the avatar of Gold before he was ready to enact his plan. If they didn’t… Well, he had seen how the golden rays affected the reinforced bricks of the walking fortress at Elmshadow, so he had ideas on how to mitigate damage in more mundane means.

“Understood,” Savren said. “I shall steadfastly steer this stint with supreme sincerity.”

“Get back with them as soon as possible,” Arkk said. “I need—”

“Concerning the captives…”

Arkk paused and looked at the two. Their states hadn’t improved during the short conversation. It made him feel a bit uneasy. “Will they recover? Or can you get them back to normal?”

“Unlikely, as I intruded into their intellects indifferent to their individual welfare.”

“I see,” Arkk said, somewhat disappointed. They were his enemy, but… He shook his head. There were other things to worry about now. “I’ll have Kia and… I’ll have Kia deal with them later,” he said, trying not to think too hard about what he was doing.

Arkk teleported away, heading to the transportation circles that would take him back to Cliff, leaving Savren alone with the two captives.

Savren softly surmised to himself, scrutinizing the seemingly soulless souls stationed before him. If they were destined for doom, better to not squander such subjects for study. His pursuits permitted little need for plentiful participants, but their procurement promised to pacify part of Zullie’s persistent pestering.

Arkk hurried through the halls of the former Duke’s manor, making heavy use of the servant corridors to pass through while avoiding the Prince’s guard. Most of the Prince’s guard, anyway. There were a few patrols in the servant corridors. But simply donning one of the uniforms Katja had left down in the hidden dungeon room where his teleportation circle sat gave him enough plausible deniability.

It helped that he was carrying a vintage bottle of wine. A servant hurrying around was suspicious but a servant carrying out a task was something to be ignored.

It certainly seemed as if the Prince had taken over the manor in its entirety. Arkk recognized a few faces around the manor as he passed through a regular hall between two servant corridors. Bandits of Katja’s. So she hadn’t gotten herself kicked out entirely. He quickly conversed with a few of them, getting directions to where Katja was.

Arkk found Horrik standing guard outside one of the lower-level guest rooms. The hulk of a man had his arms crossed over his chest, blocking the door entirely with his body. For a long moment, he just stared at Arkk, not really glaring but also not moving aside.

“Lady Katja requested a bottle of wine,” Arkk said, not sure how many of the walls had ears now that the Prince was here.

Horrik looked at him. One of those looks. But he stepped aside. He placed his hand on the door handle but paused. “Lady Katja is not in the best mood today,” Horrik said.

“Yeah. I imagine not.” The fact that she was staying in the guest quarters was indicative enough of that. Of course, if he were in Katja’s place, trying to play nice with royalty both to keep his head and keep his position, he would have offered up every accommodation possible to Prince Cedric as well.

With a firm nod of his head, Horrik turned the handle and pushed the door open.

The guest chambers were quite lavish compared to most anything at Langleey Village. They were still small enough to see throughout the entire room in one sweeping glance. Katja, clothes askew, lounged in a large chair nestled in the corner of the room. A younger man, maybe a little younger than Arkk, slept beneath the covers of the bed, his brown hair poking out from behind the fine blanket.

Arkk hesitated on seeing the man and Katja’s state of dress, but she simply waved a hand, beckoning him further into the room. As soon as he stepped past the threshold, Horrik closed the door behind him.

“Am I interrupting something?” Arkk asked, speaking quietly.

Katja didn’t bother adjusting the doublet-like outfit she wore. Not a single button was done up, leaving nothing covering the center of her chest from neck to navel. “Interrupting?” she said with a scoff, shooting a disdainful look toward the bed. “Hardly. We were engaged in nothing more than polite fiction. Though perhaps he thinks he’ll be allowed to touch me if he acts mature enough.”

“I’m… not sure I understand.”

“I don’t have to tell you all the details of my life, do I?” Katja said with a long sigh.

“No,” Arkk said. Frankly, he didn’t want to know all the details of her life. Just the important ones. After shooting one look at the boy, watching him half-snore into the feathered pillow, he turned back to Katja. “How did things go with the Prince?”

“I still have my head, don’t I? I’m taking that as a positive sign,” she said, not bothering to lower her voice in the slightest. “It seems as if my preparations paid off. Prince Cedric seemed quite pleased with my knowledge of the current state of affairs across all of Mystakeen. Even your company commander friend was surprised with how well I handled myself.”

“Hawkwood? How is he doing?”

Katja shrugged, loosening her doublet even further. “Running around like an obedient lapdog. The kind wealthy nobles preen over in the company of their peers but usually abuse behind closed doors.”

The bite in her tone sounded a bit… personal. Arkk wondered if she was talking more about her past rather than the Prince.

“I suppose you’re here wanting every detail of what transpired?”

“No, not really. Only if he is intending to act against Company Al-Mir. I trust you to handle everything else.” Or, rather, he trusted that she would act in her self-interest. Which generally meant keeping her own power by keeping friendly with others in power.

Arkk just needed to ensure that she remained aware of his power compared to whatever the Prince could offer.

Katja cocked an eyebrow? “Really? Huh.” She started to say something more, only to pause for a long yawn that devolved into an extended stretch. The striped tattoos that adorned her arms also ran along the sides of her ribs. “Sorry. Long day. He is certainly interested in you. But it seems to be more in how he might make use of you as a tool rather than an obstacle. Especially in light of this renewed attack from Evestani. He wants to meet you at some point. Hawkwood and I managed to delay, saying you would need to focus on preparing for conflict. I doubt that will work forever.”

“Fine,” Arkk said, moving just past Katja to look out the guest room window. It had a view of the harbor. Most of the ships out there were just dark silhouettes against the dark sky, but the largest ship was lit up with dozens of glowstones as people hurried across its decks. “I’ll have to find one of my nicer suits. But before that… I had another matter I required assistance with. Your assistance.”

“Oh? Not here just for a chat? I’m hurt, Arkk.”

“I need access to the Duke’s treasury.”

Arkk could feel the stillness at his back. He turned to find Katja no longer lounging in the chair but leaning forward with a scowl on her face.

“My treasury? For what reason?”

“I’m planning a construction project. It will consume a rather large quantity of resources.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you had your own source of funding. You certainly poached a number of my crew with promises of gold.”

“It would be months before my source accrues enough for this project. Naturally, I would return it all in time. And until then, I thought you might be interested in purchasing some… services from Company Al-Mir.”

“Services,” she repeated, tone flat.

Arkk swept a hand through the air. Without a word of incantation or any visible effort, a slit of a void opened between him and Katja. Her forward lean reversed, leaving her pressed against the back of the chair where she remained frozen and unmoving.

“The spell I used earlier today is a result of counter-demon magic my researchers are developing,” Arkk said, pinching his fingers together. The unnatural void in the air sealed with the movement, leaving no evidence of its existence. “Given who you’re sharing this manor with, I thought you might be interested in learning some of my secrets.

“Of course, if you aren’t interested,” Arkk said after leaving his proposal hanging in the air for a short moment. He turned and started back toward the door. “I do have others who owe me. I think I’ll pay a visit to Silver City—”

“Wait.”

Arkk paused and looked back over his shoulder.

Katja stood, finally clasping together the wooden toggles on her doublet. “Roland!” she snapped.

The boy in the bed snorted, jolting upright. He looked around with bleary eyes set in a pudgy face. A vaguely familiar face at that, though Arkk couldn’t quite place where he had seen the boy before. Perhaps among Katja’s bandit crew… except she didn’t have many youth among her crew.

“Roland, you have your ring?”

Blinking more times than Arkk felt necessary, the boy sluggishly nodded his head as he lifted his hand. Right on the middle finger, the Duke’s signet ring gleamed in the room’s lights.

Arkk looked in askance at Katja, only to find her shrugging.

“Some parts of the manor are protected, requiring the Duke—or one of his progeny—to access. The treasury among them. I’m working to adjust the locks to be a bit more favorable, and have succeeded elsewhere using help from the academy, but I’d rather not have random people having access to the treasury.”

“Perhaps you can use the time it’ll be empty to change the locks.”

“Empty?” Katja snapped. “You’re taking it all?”

“Depends on how much is there,” Arkk said. “Roland, is it?” he said as he looked at the boy. “Let’s go. I am apparently pressed for time.”

Roland didn’t do anything until Katja gave him a nod of her head. Only then did he untangle himself from the twisted blankets and scramble for a set of slippers. In short order, they were back out in the corridor and hurrying down the halls.

“Prince Cedric has taken over the upper floors,” Katja explained as she waved them down a side route. “Aside from a few of his guards posted near stairs and main entrances, he has left much of the lower levels to me. He…” She sighed. “He isn’t going to be happy if he finds out about this. I imagine the contents of the treasury technically belong to the King or somesuch.”

“Has he seen the contents?” Arkk asked. When Katja shook her head in the negative, he continued, “Then claim the Duke squandered his riches, which is why taxes were so high. Or something else to that effect. Think of it this way: You’re giving me the gold for safekeeping, making sure he can’t run off with it. After he leaves, I pay you back, and you get to sit on your mound of gold without him messing with it.”

A look of consideration crossed Katja’s face. She didn’t look happy, but the irritation that had lined her features since Arkk brought up the treasury diminished somewhat. That was good enough for him.

The treasury sat behind a large vault door beneath the throne room where the incident at the party had taken place. Katja had to bring him through the throne room. Only a few of Katja’s men were present.

Arkk had already used his crystal balls to ensure that the Prince was busy and separated from Katja before daring to step foot nearby. Even now, he had his scrying teams watching them, ready to give a warning tug should the Prince so much as look toward the door of the study he had sequestered. He would have to thank Katja later for disabling the counter-scrying magic in the manor.

At the vault door, Roland stepped forward, taking the lead. He pressed the signet ring into a little slot in the center of the rounded door and twisted his entire hand. A series of ratcheting clicks behind the door sounded out, filling the quiet corridor with an uncomfortable noise. But the door swung open without incident.

It… wasn’t as full of gold as Arkk had hoped. The treasury at Fortress Al-Mir was larger currently, even in its diminished state after building up Walking Fortress Al-Lavik. Still, it was an influx of gold that he very much needed if he wanted to press forward.

It wasn’t all gold either. Arkk could see plenty of other metals—silver mostly—along with gems and jewels all arranged in decorative cases. Fine paintings of landscapes, scenery, and people who Arkk didn’t recognize were hung from the walls, often between fanciful tapestries. Suits of armor stood in the corners, ones clearly not designed for combat. The metalwork was more a work of art than anything designed to take the blow of a weapon. Arkk wondered how often the former Duke walked through the treasury, just browsing his riches. Did he ever bring others in to show it off or was it all for himself?

Shaking his head, Arkk held out a hand and, with a muttered incantation, conjured up a lesser servant. Mentally commanding it, Arkk set it to eating everything of value in the room. That included the gems and jewels, which Arkk had discovered were worth a lot of wealth to the [HEART].

Beneath Elmshadow, Arkk had found some kind of hollow formation in the ground where glossy emerald crystals had grown from the outer shell. A geode, according to Vezta. It was supplementing his gold income almost more than the gold mine underneath Al-Mir, though it wasn’t nearly as large and would soon run out.

Katja watched the lesser servant go about its work, harvesting all the treasury, with a look of utter disappointment on her face.

Taking some pity on her, Arkk reached into his pocket and pulled out the blade he had hidden in his palm earlier. A dark, black blade with glimmers of light dotting its surface. A product of Zullie’s research into both the magic of Xel’atriss and work replicating the ceremonial dagger they had found in the Underworld.

“No incantation necessary,” he said, holding its hilt out to Katja. “Just push a little of your magic into the pommel and swipe it through the air. A little mental direction will have it form in the rough shape and size you want. We haven’t had an opportunity to test, but the hope is that a demon coming into contact with it will be shunted out of this reality and back to its own. It certainly works to stop most other things as you saw with the warships.”

Katja accepted the blade with a lot more care than he would have expected from the former bandit. Then again, he had done the same when Zullie first handed it to him. He never knew if something was going to blow up in his face.

“It won’t last forever. Only a few of those large gaps. Three or four more, I imagine. More if you use it for smaller things, but I would keep it secret until you absolutely need to use it.”

Katja stared at the blade for a long few moments before slowly looking back to the rapidly emptying treasury. “I suppose it is something,” she said, sounding glum. “You are repaying me, right?”

“After the Prince leaves. So anything we can do to expedite that would be best.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

That was more than Arkk figured he would get from Katja, so he didn’t bother pressing for anything else. He simply waited for the servant to finish its job. Once it did, he set to leaving the manor the same way he had come. He got out without incident, teleporting via ritual circle back to Fortress Al-Mir.

Deep within the recesses of the fortress, he appeared in the midst of a rather pleased-looking Priscilla and a somewhat frightened-looking Leda. The young fairy had changed since Arkk last saw her.

Her glowing red eyes were locked on the shadowy orb hovering just above her fingertips.

 

 

Arkk watched Nora soar overhead. The harpy drifted in wide circles, swooping over the open ocean.

He had already searched using the crystal ball, scanning the ocean for leagues out into the waters. There was no sign of the attacking ships. One moment, they were there. The next, they weren’t. As soon as the lead ship was destroyed, the others simply vanished.

It had Arkk unnerved. He hoped it was nothing more than stealth magic, hiding the ships. The alternative was that these new allies of Evestani had magic that could instantaneously move entire warships. Out on the seas, they couldn’t have any kind of ritual circle like what he used. The water was too… fluid. It shifted and moved. The teleportation rituals relied on relative coordinates to teleport anything above them out to a matching circle—which would be generated on first use. It couldn’t be inscribed on the water.

At the same time, he wanted that technology. His ritual circles cost massive amounts of magic if they were drawn any larger than an average horse-drawn cart, to the point where none of his employees would be able to activate them if they were too large. Combined with their relatively short range, they were far too limiting when trying to move something large a decent distance. The repeated activations were just as draining as a large circle making mass movements also infeasible.

Yet if their new enemy could move something that large far enough that he couldn’t find it…

If he could do that…

Nora swooped down, spreading her wings wide just in time to slow herself before she crashed into the docks. Her talons bit into the wood, holding her steady as she swept her head back and forth. The emerald green feathers that cascaded down the back of her head bobbed with the movement.

“Anything?” Arkk asked. There hadn’t been any fog in the crystal ball like what Evestani used to hide their movements, but he had still sent her out to try to find anything she could.

Unfortunately, the harpy shook her head again, this time in a far more negative motion. “I circled wide like you asked. Nothing out there that looks like a warship. A few fishing boats…”

Perhaps those ships might have somehow disguised themselves as smaller vessels, but… it seemed unlikely.

As he was debating sending Nora back out, expanding the search area even further this time, Zharja slithered up to the docks. Gorgon, snakelike as they were, were quite adept at moving through water. Zharja especially. After the golden knight had ripped off a portion of her tail, Hale had regrown it better than ever. It was thick, with powerful muscles coiled under the hardy metallic scales, and even sported a small barb that produced the same caustic venom that gorgon could spit.

The water dripped off her scales, reflecting the sunlight in a dazzling array of colors beyond which her normally iridescent scales would produce. Her presence caused an uncomfortable stir among the men Katja had left on the docks. Even the burly Horrik stilled a moment before barking out an order to carry on retrofitting one of the fishing vessels.

Arkk paid them little mind, far more focused on the splintered plank of wood she held in her arms.

Long lines in the charred wood carved out a pattern. It wasn’t scorch marks from a fire—the lead ship hadn’t collapsed into a fire as far as he had seen—but precise patterns of pyrography that formed a partial ritual circle. From the small sample Zharja held, he could see some kind of spatial element, but not enough to tell its intended function.

“Were there others?” Arkk asked, looking up to Zharja’s eyes.

“Yess,” she hissed, making Arkk smile. “The otherss are hauling them, along with two ssurvivorss.”

“Survivors?” Arkk asked, surprise overriding his curiosity over the potential ritual circle. “From the warship or one of the sunken fishing vessels?”

The attackers had taken out a few fishing boats during their attack. Nothing out in the ocean at large, as far as he had been able to tell. Which likely meant they had teleported in just as they teleported out.

“Warsshipss… I think,” Zharja said, though she didn’t sound completely certain. “We only ssearched around the sshards of the sship.”

That was almost unbelievable. He had seen the warship’s destruction. It crumped as easily as he might crumple a piece of paper, exploding out into splinters of wood and shards of metal. Arkk was surprised there was an intact plank as long as the one Zharja had. For a person to have survived that… And two, no less? They must have jumped overboard just before that spell hit their ship.

Arkk looked over, watching Horrik for a moment. The man was ushering a few others up a narrow gangplank to the fishing ship. The two on their way up looked like academy initiates. Probably here to scrawl out some ritual circles under the direction of someone a little more knowledgeable. At least, Arkk hoped there was someone more knowledgeable than a bunch of bandits and initiates at the helm.

“Head back out there,” Arkk said, looking back to Zharja. “Have them bring the survivors around to the slum side of the harbor. Bring them to the teleportation circle near the Primrose. Get the survivors to Savren and any intact ritual circle planks to Zullie. Try not to be seen on the way.” He paused a moment, thought about it, then added in a bare whisper, “You may petrify anyone in the way as long as you restore them to normal as soon as the survivors are out of sight.”

Zharja dipped her head in an acknowledging nod. She turned around and, after a twisting wiggle of her tail, dove back into the water off the side of the docks.

Savren would dig into their minds. He would find out who the warships belonged to and what they were after. Maybe even why they had allied with Evestani, Evestani’s plan going forward, and any other surprise attacks they might unleash. Zullie, meanwhile, would dig into that ritual circle and figure out what it was. Arkk hoped it was their teleportation spell. He hoped that the warship was the lower end of its teleportation capabilities.

He was a little worried that he was dumping a bit too much on Zullie’s shoulders. She was juggling a dozen hats at the moment. Some related to each other, like counter-demon magics and her investigations into magic that stemmed from Xel’atriss, Lock and Key. Others were a somewhat lower priority but no less important, like reconfiguring the portal to make use of the keystone Sylvara brought. They needed to figure out how to properly investigate other domains to come up with a proper countermeasure for the Heart of Gold’s avatar.

Preferably before Evestani’s forward march reached Elmshadow.

He was fortifying Elmshadow as best he could. Stemming from the Walking Fortress, he had sent dozens upon dozens of the lesser servants out and around, claiming both underground territory and land on the surface for the tower. The entirety of Elmshadow was under his direct control at this point, along with much of the farmlands that stretched out through the valley between the Elm mountains. He couldn’t claim the entire mountain ranges, but he could claim enough of it that it would be impossible to surprise him even if they used some spell that could transport their entire army the same way they teleported those warships.

And, even if they did teleport their entire army into his territory, he owned it. He could simply teleport an alchemical explosive directly into the middle of their army. No need to endanger his men at all.

“Nora,” he said, looking back to the harpy. “Take to the skies again, this time focus on scouting out the Prince’s forces. Just do a few passes overhead, and see how they’re recovering and moving. And… if you spot anything strange, report back to me without delay.”

“Going, going,” Nora said, spreading her wings wide.

Arkk pulled out his crystal ball, trying to focus on Katja.

Unfortunately, the image within simply turned blank. It was a similar problem as he once had scrying on Inquisitor Vrox. He couldn’t even look at the army that was lined up outside the city. When the attack had hit the armored carriage, some of its defenses must have activated. The crystal ball couldn’t get anywhere near close enough to it to see what was going on. All he could tell was that they were working with the city guard to try to help people who had been caught in the landslide the attacking ships had caused.

He wanted to go up there and get eyes on the Prince. But the Prince was with Hawkwood. If the latter saw him, he would likely have to inform the Prince of who he was.

That… could end terribly if Prince Cedric didn’t take kindly to Arkk’s presence.

All he could do was sit back and rely on a former bandit lord to carry out her duty to perfection.

“Quite the welcome we’ve received.”

Katja’s smile was the smile of a liar. Perfectly posed and without a hint of strain. “I’m relieved to see you made it through without harm,” she lied.

The assassination failed. Her efforts in locking out the Prince during the attack had been a waste. She had been careful. There should be no evidence outside her mind beyond the fact that she had given the order. That should be dismissible by claiming she hadn’t known that the Prince was on the path to the city. It might harm her carefully cultivated facade of competence, but hopefully, she could make up for that in other ways.

“You arrived at a most tumultuous time,” Katja continued.

Prince Cedric Valorian Lafoar stood before her, tall and imposing in armor that lacked ornamentation. Rather, it looked like he just got off the battlefield. His surcoat had stains. Blood, probably, though they were old enough to have dried to a crusty blackish brown. The hauberk poking out underneath had dented and bent rings of metal, undoubtedly from an enemy’s weapon.

He had been traveling, so perhaps it should be expected that his gear wouldn’t be in pristine shape. His goatee and slicked-back hair were neatly trimmed but not any more so than a random peasant who took care of themselves. Katja had a slight suspicion that he wasn’t the actual prince, just a stand-in to protect against potential harm.

But there wasn’t anything Katja could do about it now. She had tried to get rid of him in a way that would implicate neither her nor Arkk. That had failed. Now she had to cozy up and figure out what he wanted.

He hadn’t ordered her immediate beheading, which was a positive.

“Give me a timeline of today’s events,” the Prince said, looking about the garrison.

They had hustled inside, moving the entire convoy just beyond the city gate in under thirty minutes. The protective magic over the city was active once again, though there was no obvious threat on the horizon. Katja simply felt it was prudent to show her proactivity.

“The enemy warships appeared in the harbor approximately one and a half hours ago,” Katja said, bowing before giving her report. The book on etiquette she had uncovered in the manor offered her a few tips on meeting a noble of higher standing. It was an old book, but one that hopefully wasn’t considered too outdated. “Witness reports state that they simply sailed into the harbor. I have men interviewing residents of the harbor and fishing crews who might have seen more as we speak.

“They opened fire immediately, using cannon-based alchemical bombardment to assail the city. Garrison drills paid off in a hasty activation of the counter-bombardment ritual. With assistance from a few inquisitors, they managed to hold out until I could organize a defense using the dock-mounted cannons—”

“You organized the defense?” Prince Cedric cut in, still not looking in her direction. His attentions were focused across the garrison courtyard where some of his men were hastily repairing the mostly superficial damage to his armored carriage. The two manticores loomed over the work almost like they were about to pounce on the carriage.

Katja shuddered, wondering exactly how tame they were. Manticores were dangerous. Easily on the level of gorgon if not greater. They weren’t known to be particularly friendly to other species.

“While the garrison ran regular drills to ensure they could defend from bombardment magic and return attacks against anything approaching by land, they neglected drills operating the defenses from sea-based attacks. My… former profession gave me a certain level of competence in defending a fortification.”

Prince Cedric’s gaze swiveled toward Katja. He didn’t speak, simply choosing to watch her with an intense, scrutinizing gaze.

Lightly clearing her throat, Katja continued, “We were able to mount something resembling a defense, even causing significant damage to one of their ships. They were in the process of fleeing when word arrived that your convoy reached my gates.”

“Your gates, are they?”

Katja hid her grimace with a deep bow. “Your Highness,” Katja said, carefully raising her head just as that old book of etiquette said she should. “It is with immense honor and jubilation that I bid you welcome to the City of Cliff. I apologize for the delay in formally welcoming you here. This city is yours—as are its gates—and I am at your service during your sojourn. May your time herein be as agreeable as it is distinguished.”

The Prince’s eyebrows slid up his brow ever so slightly. “A line ripped from the pages of The Booke of Courtesie. Author unknown. Written approximately five hundred years ago.”

Katja suppressed another wince. Outdated might have been an understatement.

“You are Lady Katja, former bandit turned… regent of Cliff,” he said, voice carrying a weight that would have silenced the entire garrison in a less stressful situation. “Your rise to power has been meteoric, to say the least.”

Regent. Was it good that he named her that? It almost sounded like an official title. Which was probably a good sign. Unfortunately, a regent was typically a temporary position.

Katja decided to focus on the positives. It was almost an official title, one that implied he was perhaps not upset with her in a way that would get her the same treatment the Count of Vaales received during his rebellion. First, before anything else, she had to ensure that she kept her head firmly attached to her shoulders. Only then could she grasp for every scrap of power she could get from the situation.

“The war displaced me along with many others,” Katja said, attempting to keep a neutral tone of voice. “That has a certain way of granting perspective that I lacked before.”

“Did it? Or did it simply provide new opportunities? If what has crossed my desk is true, you were well on your way to owning Moonshine Burg before the war interrupted your progress. And now, you’ve somehow managed to find a new seat of power to occupy.”

Katja very much wished he hadn’t known anything about Moonshine Burg. How had he found that out anyway? The entire burg fell in the opening act of the war. Had Arkk evacuated people from there who managed to send a report to the Prince?

Before she could come up with anything to say in response, another man hurried across the courtyard. Though she had never met him in person, the graying hair, hardy beard, and—most importantly—the white surcoat with a black chevron identified him as Hawkwood, commander of White Company.

“Sire,” Hawkwood said with a deep bow, far deeper than the one Katja had offered.

The Prince took his piercing gaze off Katja, looking to the letter held in Hawkwood’s hands.

“I just received a missive via Swiftwing from Arkk—”

“Ah yes. The other of the problems in this territory. Why am I not surprised that I am already hearing his name.”

“It likely relates to the warships in the harbor,” Hawkwood said, slowly righting himself. “According to this, Evestani has begun marching across the Duchy—Mystakeen. This time, accompanied by soldiers from the Eternal Empire.”

“Numbers?” Prince Cedric asked without a hint of surprise in his voice. “Unit makeup?”

“I…” Hawkwood slowly shook his head, looking at the letter for a moment. “He didn’t say.”

“Useless,” he said, again without any surprise in his tone. Nor anger, for that matter. It was as if he simply expected a useless response and was confirming to himself that it was, indeed, useless. “I presume Elmshadow is still under Al-Mir’s control?”

“Unless Arkk has relocated his walking tower without informing me, yes.”

“How would you rate his odds at withstanding an Evestani counterattack?”

Hawkwood fell silent for a moment, considering. “Arkk has powerful magic and employees at his disposal. I would say the odds favor him. Except Evestani is aware of many of his tricks. If I were in Evestani’s commander’s position, I would ensure I could handle Arkk’s magic before attacking again. The Eternal Empire’s presence additionally complicates things. I don’t know much about them.”

“I see. Send a return harpy immediately, find out everything he knows about the approaching force.”

Hawkwood shifted a moment then nodded his head. “I’ll do what I can.”

“As for you, Lady Katja,” Prince Cedric said, turning back to her. “The fact that you read The Booke of Courtesie tells me much of your intentions. Bend the knee, kiss the ring, and hope for the best, is it?”

Katja pressed her lips together. She wouldn’t have phrased it that way—it was a bit too degrading—but there wasn’t much point in denying it. Perhaps if she saw another opportunity for a plausible assassination, her plans would change. For now… “I am prepared to render whatever assistance I can in reclaiming full control of Mystakeen in the name of the Greater Kingdom of Chernlock.”

“Very well. Make your attempt. I will be the judge of its worthiness. You may begin by arranging a meeting with all notable personnel in the city.”

“Many military, civil, and economic advisors are housed at or around my… the manor. We’ll be able to organize things from there. I can arrange for a carriage if yours is too damaged to make the journey?”

Prince Cedric turned away. He brought his fingers to his lips and unleashed a sharp whistle.

One of the manticores bounded over, its lion-like head snarling at a poor guard who had already been walking in the way. Its snake-like tail lowered to the ground, providing a place for the Prince to step. Hauling himself onto its back with far more dignity than Katja would have been able to muster, the Prince turned to her.

“I will meet you there,” he said.

As soon as he finished speaking, the bat wings of the manticore spread wide, carrying him up into the skies.

Katja glared after him for a long moment before deciding that keeping him waiting for even a minute longer than necessary was a bad idea.

 

 

 

“Horrik! Unleash the cannons!”

“Aye, Lady Katja.”

The hammering thumps resounding in Katja’s chest as alchemical explosives detonated in series was music to her ears. According to one of the former Duke’s advisors, who now served Katja, Cliff had only once come under attack via sea. That had been nearly a hundred years ago in yet another conflict with Evestani—or rather, the empire that was their predecessor.

But that didn’t mean that the local guard had neglected the defenses. Powerful turrets occupied strategic spots along the harbor, utilizing magically augmented alchemical explosives to launch volleys of destruction out into the sea. Accuracy wasn’t the guard’s strong suit, unfortunately. All of the streaks of fire came down nowhere near the ships out on the water, instead setting the water itself aflame.

It would have been an impressive sight, the water literally burning, were it not for the utterly unharmed ships. “Horrik!”

“Working on it,” Horrik said, readjusting some part of the nearest cannon even as he shouted commands down the rest of the line.

These cannons hadn’t been used, even for a test, in at least a decade. Perhaps longer than that. It didn’t help that a number of those who knew how to operate them had… well, they hadn’t exactly agreed with Katja’s newfound position as head of the city. Even if they had been around, they would have been rusty beyond belief. That would change after today. There would be regular drills to ensure those manning the harbor cannons could wield them effectively.

Assuming the Prince didn’t behead her upon arrival.

The Prince’s arrival was imminent. She knew exactly where the Prince was.

He was just outside the city. Katja had ordered the protective barrier active knowing he was right there. This attack could very well be intended to kill him. If it was, she was perfectly willing to let them do what they had come here for. If Prince Cedric died at the hands of an enemy attack, she could hardly be held responsible. And then she wouldn’t have to deal with him.

The problem was that they were attacking her city. Either they hadn’t noticed the Prince on the long path down to the main city of Cliff or they were here for her. Or some other objective.

So, she had to defend the city. If there was a silver lining, it was that she could hopefully demonstrate some level of competence that Prince Cedric might appreciate.

Well, she supposed that depended on whether or not they managed to do significant damage to the city. Appearing competent did require some level of competence.

“Stop trying to hit them and hit them!” Katja barked out as she started pacing back and forth along the harbor. She had to pause to keep her balance as a fresh volley rumbled into the docks.

“Wind coming in strong from the east!” Horrik shouted, his voice almost lost in the cacophony of explosions. “Pull the shots to the right!”

The dome cracked as a return volley from the ships struck. Katja flinched, heart pounding, wondering if coming out here in person was such a good idea. She wanted to give a good show of it and demonstrate her leadership in person, be seen by those who might still have doubts about her station in the city. But she was at the front lines. If an attack from the ships made it through, she would take it to the face.

A resounding boom, different from all the rest, shuddered the docks. For a moment, she thought something had made it through the protective dome. But no.

This time, the impact was undeniable. The lead ship took the hit directly to its stern. It didn’t make it onto the deck, but flames coursed all along the side, eating into the wood and forcing the enemy crew away from their cannons. A ripple of water magic erupted along the side, rushing down from the bow to the back, dousing the flames as it moved.

The damage was done. A gaping hole in the rear of the ship started taking on water.

Cheers broke out along the harbor as Katja’s forces saw the first real sign of their efforts bearing fruit.

“Don’t stop!” Katja shouted, emboldened by the victory as much as anyone else. “Again! Focus on the lead ship!”

A fierce grin spread across Horrik’s face. He shouted his own commands, relaying directions down the line. They adjusted the cannons, clumsily refocusing. Katja wasn’t sure that Horrik’s commands were the best. He didn’t know how to use these cannons any better than a fresh rookie. But, emboldened by the successful strike, everyone was eagerly hoping for more.

The ships fired their salvo. The protective spell shuddered, cracked, and shattered.

In an instant, the elation among the troops turned to terror as the protective spell fell and the bombardment from the enemy seared towards the docks. Katja, heart pounding and adrenaline surging, slammed her hand onto a younger boy’s shoulder.

“Roland,” she hissed. “Now.”

The boy, eyes wide and fearful, slotted his hand into a small groove atop a pylon she had placed on the docks. The signet ring he wore easily slid into a matching depression and, with a turn of his wrist, it clicked. Katja, a hand on the boy’s shoulder, flooded her magic through him, filling the ritual circle he had made whole.

A surge of magic pulsed out, ripping through the air. It collided with the incoming projectiles, creating a barrier of shimmering light that deflected them back toward the sea. The force wasn’t enough to capsize the ships, but it kept the docks safe. For the moment.

Katja was a spellcaster of little renown, but this relied on the Duke’s signet ring, not on her power or that of Roland.

It was also not something that could be used with any frequency. It was a last-ditch attempt at staving off an attack. Originally, the pylon was meant to protect the manor. But she had moved this pylon from the manor out to the docks, just in case. There were other such pylons in the manor, but none that were both mobile and would assist with this situation.

Now that it was done with, she stared out, feeling sick. The protective dome hadn’t come up yet. Her men were still ducking and covering as if that would aid with anything instead of returning fire. And the second of the three ships was readying its volley.

Katja took a step back, grimacing. Her eyes flicked to the side. “Horrik—”

The ships erupting in cannon fire cut Katja off. Eyes wide and heart pounding, she threw herself to the ground, dragging Roland with her in an attempt to use his body as a shield.

Silence crushed the docks. But no explosions. No pain of splintering wood, no fragments of stone, and no heat of flames. Not even a splashing of the water as the attacks fell short. Katja, on the ground, slowly lifted her head, wondering where the pain was.

A black streak cut across the sky. No, not black. A void of space sliced through the air in front of the docks, broken only by tiny twinkling lights. Flames burned the sky along the edges, steaming the surface of the water and reaching up into the sky, but the attacks didn’t make it to the docks.

Katja had never seen magic like that before. Granted, having lived her life as a slave and then as a bandit, she didn’t have the widest breadth of knowledge. But this, the way it hung in the air filled her stomach with nausea. It was unnatural.

And she knew what it was. The Duke had left reports behind on the terrible fissure in the sky. The Abbey of the Light had met with her, impressing upon her the necessity of action primarily because of that fissure. She hadn’t seen it happen because she had been underground, within Fortress Al-Mir, at the time. But she knew just who the Abbey suspected was the cause of that incident.

The haze of the protective dome shimmered back into place, cutting just ahead of that fissure in space. As soon as it was in place, the fissure vanished. Whoever was manning the ritual circle at the garrison took far too long to get new ritualists in place. That would undergo some drills in the future as well.

For now, teeth clenched, Katja shoved herself off the ground. “Back in action!” she barked out. “Get these Light-less dirtbags out of my harbor!”

“You heard the lady!”

The men, startled and shaken but not yet out of it, jumped back on the weaponry. Alchemical might flung out to sea after the ships. Katja wasn’t sure it was necessary anymore.

“Y… You tried to save me?”

Katja looked down at where Roland remained curled into a small ball. He looked up at her with fresh respect.

She just shook her head and turned her gaze back on the battle.

In the few moments when that fissure had been active, the ship captains must have decided that they weren’t prepared to deal with that unnatural magic. Their sails billowed as they turned to catch the wind, a clear sign of retreat. Aside from the lead ship taking on a small bit of water, a negligible amount in all likelihood, they hadn’t suffered any real damage.

Did they not want to try to break through another of the protective domes while weathering attacks? Or did they fear something a little more volatile from the unnatural magics than a mere defensive barrier?

“Katja. What are you doing out here?”

Katja didn’t turn to face the speaker. “Demonstrating competence,” she said, absolutely certain her quiet voice would be drowned out by the slapping of the water against the docks, not to mention the cannon fire. She hoped the frustration was drowned out by it. Saved by him? What part of that was competence? “And what of you, Arkk? I thought we were to keep our association a secret?”

“To a point. I’m not going to let you die. Or anyone, if I can help it.”

“How altruistic,” she said, trying not to sneer.

“They’re leaving.”

“So it would seem.”

Katja watched as the ships picked up speed from a sudden gust of wind coming directly from their rears, her heart still racing from the adrenaline of seeing her end approach, only to be saved at the last moment. The harbor was a mess of emotions; cheers and cries of relief mixed in with the crackling of fires that had made it to shore.

“Evestani is on the march again,” Arkk said as he stepped closer. “This time, they are backed up by well-equipped soldiers bearing the same emblem as what is on those flags.”

“Any idea who they are?” Katja asked, glaring at the retreating ships. “Or the reason for the attack—I assume they’re trying to kill the Prince? Or any way to blast those ships out of the water before they get away?”

“I could try slinging lightning bolts or a specific flame spell, but I don’t think they would do enough damage before they got too far away. As for the who and why, I was hoping you might know.”

Katja shook her head back and forth, half turning away from the retreating ships. She was about to say something along the lines of how the hell would she know who they were? Her upbringing hadn’t exactly included vexillology tutoring. She had been a slave and a bandit.

But some part of her mind stuttered to a stop as she caught sight of Arkk.

“You look ridiculous,” she said to the man wearing a heavy black cloak with the hood fully up and over his head. He had some kind of wooden mask, plain and blank except for two dark circles where the eyes should be.

“I’m trying to be inconspicuous about our relationship.”

Katja couldn’t help her laugh. “And you thought this was the best way to remain inconspicuous? The magic you used wouldn’t make it obvious enough? I’m sure many, many eyes are on the docks right now. Everyone will have seen that.”

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to use it,” Arkk said, grabbing the mask and pulling it off his face. He had a glower for the ages on underneath.

“Well, you did. And everyone saw. Damnit,” Katja hissed. “The Abbey is going to come knocking again.”

She wanted to kick them out of the city. It would be better for everyone if she didn’t have them hovering over her shoulder. But they were experiencing the same benefit that Katja had used to instigate her little revolution. They were popular among the populace. Both because of the general religiousness of the average citizen as well as their goodwill whenever they came out to heal, put out fires, or otherwise assist with everyday living.

The general public didn’t know that they were the primary driving force behind the Duke’s alliance with the Evestani. It was honestly inspiring how well they had come out looking like the good guys. Their public relations were something Katja strived to emulate.

“Good work!” Katja shouted, turning away from Arkk. She needed to focus on the here and now. “We’ve got them running. Horrik! Ensure they truly leave the port and aren’t just moving out of range.”

Horrik looked at her, raising a bushy eyebrow. He didn’t want to undermine her authority by questioning her orders. At the same time, she could read the question on his face. ‘How am I supposed to manage that?’

Cliff didn’t have its warships. It did have plentiful fishing vessels, from small skiffs to larger, ocean-worthy ships. Katja would have to commission something worthy of defending the harbor if this was how this new enemy wanted to fight. Until then, retrofitting one of the fishing vessels with all the magic the garrison and the academy could shove on it would have to do.

Even that would take time.

“Get whatever bombardment magic you can and chase them as far as the range allows. Then find the largest ship in the harbor, requisition it from its owners, and start getting it outfitted in case they come back.”

“Aye.”

“Now,” Katja said, lowering her voice. “What are we going…” She trailed off, hearing something. It was a faint sound, something just barely carried on the wind. She turned back to the harbor, worried it was coming from the departing ships. Some parting surprise.

They were deploying something from the backs of their ships. Large barrels. But they weren’t the sound she was hearing. The barrels made plopping noises.

What she heard was something more… musical in nature. Except not quite. It lacked a melody.

“Trumpets?” Arkk said, cocking his head to the side, hearing it as well.

He was right. Now that he said it, the sound clicked in the back of her mind. Trumpets weren’t an instrument she was too familiar with. There were a few among her crew who had enjoyed playing music at Porcupine Hill, usually anytime there was something to celebrate. Flutes, lutes, and drums, mostly. Things that were easy to make out away from civilization. Trumpets required a bit of knowledge to manufacture.

Katja started to grin, only to freeze her expression in place. She quickly covered the momentary smile with a look of confusion.

Arkk looked just as confused as she was. Staring at his face, she could see the moment the realization hit.

“The Prince,” she hissed, cursing under her breath for the show of it. “He must still be outside the barrier?”

It was good that he hadn’t gotten inside. Now, with the trumpets blaring, perhaps he thought himself in a bit of trouble. She looked out to see, noting the ships. They were readying the cannons even as they angled away from the bulk of the city.

Reaching under his cloak, Arkk produced a crystal ball. Katja hurried over as an image shimmered inside, showing the narrow pass that led down to Cliff proper. The haze of the protective dome separated the city from an army.

There were two parts to the army. Hawkwood’s men were easily distinguishable by their white banners and surcoats, bisected by a black chevron. They were, for the most part, on the outsides of the main convoy, protecting their sides and rear. Not that there was much room. They were practically in single-file lines on either side of a small group of red and yellow armored soldiers, both mounted and foot soldiers. The Prince’s colors.

At the center of it all was a carriage made entirely from metal. Rugged and thick metal. She could tell just from a glance that it wasn’t thinly plated. Drawn forward by two massive manticores, beasts made up from a mixture of animals, and covered in protective magic circles, it was the dominating feature of the caravan.

“He’s here early,” Katja spat, forcing the irritation to maintain her innocent look. “Is he an idiot? Sounding his trumpets in a situation like this?”

“They must have seen the attack and hurried along.”

“Now they’re not moving at all… on the outside of the barrier.” It was stopping them from entering. Just as she planned. “I need to get them inside before those ships decide they’ll be a good target. If something happens to the Prince, it will be my head that will roll… Horrik!” she shouted. “Handle things here!”

“Aye!”

“Keep on them, don’t let them even think of taking a shot at the Prince!” Katja shouted as she vaulted over a railing. She had retainers a distance away, keeping hold of a horse-drawn carriage for her. Unhitching the horse from the carriage and riding it alone to the gate was the fastest way to get there.

“What’s your plan?” Arkk called, chasing after her.

For a brief moment, Katja thought he was talking about her hopes that the Prince would take a cannonball to the face. But no, he was asking what she planned to do about the Prince being on the outside of the barrier. She didn’t bother glancing back. “You think I have one?” she snapped over her shoulder.

She had everything planned. A grand welcoming, both theatric and befitting of someone of Prince Cedric’s standing. Uncertain of the Prince’s personality, she had plotted out two avenues to proceed from there, all based on her first impressions. In one plan, there was to be a feast, lavish gifts, and entertainment enough to last for days. In the other, a serious and detailed meeting where she would be able to go over the exact state of the Duchy, providing statistics, deployment patterns, updates from Arkk and her own guard, and anything else he might ask for. She had spent days and nights compiling all the information, going over it backward and forwards to ensure she knew everything the Prince might possibly ask.

And now this?

Katja didn’t know who these interlopers were, but if they killed the Prince, they would be a blessing in disguise. If they didn’t, she could simply go back to her previous plotting.

The horses were skittish and uneasy. Not surprising given all the noise of the battle. Katja’s retainers started getting the carriage ready upon spotting her approach. Katja brushed them off, unlatching the horse’s harness herself before slinging herself up and onto its bare back. Slamming her heels into its sides sent the horse bolting, leaving both her retainers and Arkk behind.

Riding bareback wasn’t comfortable or fun at the best of times. Trying to direct an upset horse through the streets of Cliff still wasn’t the worst she had had. It was faster than walking. Still, she was relieved when she made it to the garrison without getting bucked off its back.

She tore inside, glad that a good number of the guards had been replaced with her men who recognized her without any trouble. “Shut it down,” she shouted, barging into the central ritual room. She couldn’t act any longer, not while maintaining plausible deniability. If the Prince wasn’t dead already, it was too late for that.

Three inquisitors of the Abbey and a spellcaster, all with strained faces, looked up.

“Shut it down!” she repeated. “The Prince is outside the barrier with the barbarians!”

That got a reaction. One of the inquisitors, a woman with tinted round glasses, reacted first, pulling back from the ritual circle. Without her to support the magical reaction, the other three were swiftly forced to stop. The inquisitor, unsteady on her feet and looking drained, started toward Katja with questions on her lips, but Katja didn’t have time to sit around answering them.

As swiftly as she came, Katja hurried back out.

The garrison was built into the mountainside right next to the main gate leading into Cliff. It took mere minutes to get to the gatehouse. “Open the gates!” she shouted, utterly baffled at the incompetence of the guards stationed there.

Yes, the gates should be kept shut in an emergency but the Light-damned Prince was on the other side.

She climbed the stairs to the wall, half expecting to have to pull the locking lever herself. The moment she reached the top and looked out, she saw it.

Bright pinpoints of light all along the broadsides of the ships in the harbor.

She couldn’t do anything but watch, her heart filling with a slurry of dread and hope, as those pinpoints turned to arching streaks that sailed into the air, trailing fire in their wake. A dozen of the streaks slammed into the Grand Old Church with a vengeance. The large temple to the Light shielded much of Cliff, helping out even in its demise, but it did not stop the streaks of light aimed toward the main route into Cliff.

One struck the mountain overhead, shredding the cliff wall and showering rock and stone down on the Prince’s caravan. People below dove for cover. Katja watched one unfortunate crushed entirely by a rock as large as a horse. One of the manticores reared back and swung its snake-like tail around. The viper maw opened and caught one of the fireballs before spewing it back in the direction it had come from. Its defense was, unfortunately, imperfect. Another flaming ball sailed true, rocking the armored carriage far enough to tip it onto its side even though it didn’t penetrate the metal.

More rocks, sheared off the cliffside from flying fireballs, fell, collapsing on the now upward-facing side of the carriage. It might not be able to get through the armor, but the Prince wouldn’t last long if the mountain fell on top of him. At the very least, he would run out of air.

Before Katja could come up with anything to rectify the situation, the door to the carriage slammed open, flinging the heavy stones that had fallen on it off into the distance.

A black and white blur erupted from the open carriage straight into the air. It was little more than a flicker in the corner of Katja’s eye. She barely managed to track it as it reached a pinnacle high in the sky. Only her intense concentration on the situation let her follow it.

Instead of arching back down the way a projectile might, it hung in that apex, a dark flicker against the blue sky. As quickly as it reached that apex, it aimed straight at the lead ship, crossing the distance in yet another flicker of movement.

For a brief instant, nothing happened. Katja stared at the ship, expecting an explosion or some sign of damage from whatever magic the Prince had launched.

The ship crumpled. From the distance she was at, it looked like it collapsed in on itself. Like two giant hands had clapped together, crushing it the way a farmer might crush an annoying mosquito. Even the water around the boat sloshed together, meeting in the middle where it spewed upwards in a geyser of water, splinters, and metal shards that reached higher than the crow’s nest of the following ship.

The other two ships vanished immediately after. They didn’t collapse like the first. One moment they were there, then, with a light snapping sound in the air, they simply weren’t. Sea water rushed into the vacancies left in their absence.

Katja fell into a stupor. She was a spellcaster of some ability. She had spent time in Arkk’s magical fortress. But she had never seen anything like that. What manner of magic was it?

Slowly, she turned her head back. Most everyone who wasn’t in immediate danger was stuck looking out to sea, likely feeling exactly as she was at the moment.

What was Arkk thinking? Was this another day for him? Or was he staring in shock as well? He had that spell that had protected the harbor, but could he do something like that?

Katja cocked her head to one side and slowly started to smile. Her eyes settled on the metal carriage that the large manticores were carefully righting.

“Men!” she shouted, startling the guards on the wall with her. “Get out there. Assist anyone in need and escort everyone else inside the walls! Then get the protective magics back up and running.

“We have a Prince to welcome to the city.”

If he survived.

 

 

After weeks of wandering the desolation of the Underworld, the initial thrill of adventure and comradery had given way to an unexpected sense of restlessness and confinement. Olatt’an was no stranger to travel, long and short, but the Underworld was a different beast entirely. Despite the boundless expanse of the world that surrounded him, a paradoxical feeling of being trapped within an invisible cage had taken hold. The endless orange-hued landscape with no clear distinction between day and night, the distant columns of shadow, the utter lack of any civilization throughout the land, and the monotonous routine of waking, eating, walking, and sleeping, made the vast wilderness feel as restrictive as the walls of a small, enclosed space.

Who knew that the confined space of Fortress Al-Mir would somehow feel more open and inviting than the entire world?

It wasn’t just Olatt’an feeling the internal struggle of physical restlessness. Everyone on their little caravan was facing that urge to move, to escape, yet there was no clear destination unless they wanted to turn around and head back to the portal. Even the horses were growing antsy and irritable.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Olatt’an asked. It wasn’t much of a guess.

The elf, usually the epitome of grace and serenity, now bore the unmistakable signs of a night devoid of sleep. Her usually radiant skin appeared dull and shadows haunted the space beneath her eyes. The silver locks of hair, normally arranged as if she were prepared to present herself to a court of nobles even in this desolate land, hung limp around her face. Even though her movements still carried some of the fluidity and deliberate motions, they were weighed down by a level of exhaustion that wasn’t unfamiliar to Olatt’an.

At his question, Alya simply glared.

Chuckling, Olatt’an said, “Bad dreams?”

“You’ve been having them too?”

“Mhm…” Olatt’an grunted, noncommittally. He hadn’t had dreams in many years, not since he was much younger. But he had heard the others commenting on strange visions in the night. Dark shadows circling them, looking at them, only to awaken and find everything normal.

“Despite my apprehension, I was initially quite… interested in seeing a whole new world,” Alya said, sweeping a hand over her head in an attempt to straighten her hair. It didn’t work. “I am beginning to think that this land is cursed. If this is what the elders of my people believed would happen to our world, their vigil over the cursed forest is all the more understandable. If my failure to protect it causes this,” she waved a hand about, “to spread…”

“Arkk is aware of that potential problem,” Olatt’an said as he chewed at a chunk of hardtack. They had long since run out of the fresher foods. Now they were firmly in the travel ration territory. It was just another thing that was harming the morale of the group. “I trust that he won’t proceed unless he is sure that nothing unfortunate will occur.”

Alya pursed her dry lips in a momentary frown. “He wouldn’t knowingly do such a thing,” she admitted. “But unknowingly? There is too much at stake. Too many unknowns. He should leave well enough alone.”

“I doubt he will. Not with Vezta pushing him forward. But that’s why we’re out here, to gather information.”

“Vezta,” Alya said with an annoyed click of her tongue.

She didn’t continue her thoughts, however.

A Protector approached. It, notably, wasn’t the same Protector that had been with them thus far. It was just a little bit shorter. Still three times as tall as Alya, but not quite as tall as the others. The short thorny spines that adorned its carapace were smaller and less curved as well. Was it a youth?

That made an odd question cross Olatt’an’s mind. Did the Protector reproduce? If so, how? Was it… Did it just… They were all the same being, but… On its own? Or…

Perhaps some questions were better left unanswered.

“We will arrive today, not long after we set off.”

“Really?” Olatt’an perked up. That was good news. He could see the rest of their troupe, all those in the vicinity who had heard, look up as well. “Could have mentioned that last night.”

The Protector’s head twisted on an axis that normal beings couldn’t normally manage. “My memories from Savren indicate that anticipation and excitement harm the efficacy of… sleep,” it said, as if the word was unusual.

“Yes, but I’m sure everyone here would have been willing to march an extra few hours if it meant arriving a little sooner.”

The Protector didn’t respond. It simply stared with those horizontal pupils.

“Never mind. Ready up!” he called out to the group. “We continue in five minutes!”

“If the world were ending today, the oracles would have given more concrete information,” Sylvara shouted as she rushed through the corridors of the Cliff Academy.

“Up until a week ago, the oracles were allegedly paralyzed,” Lui shot back, “unable to see anything. Who can say what oddities might happen in these… strange times.”

Arkk wasn’t sure he liked the look Lui shot him. Whatever this was, it wasn’t his fault. Probably. But she had been sending him looks of ill intent since she first walked through that door, so it wasn’t that strange. If anything, it would have been more worrying if she hadn’t been suspicious of him.

Whatever shook the academy—the mountain that the academy had been built within—hadn’t gone unnoticed among the regular students and instructors. Although there hadn’t been any further disturbances, the corridors were flooded with people trying to get out. Earthquakes in Mystakeen weren’t entirely unheard of. Natural tremors in the earth, often said to be caused by a lack of light since they usually occurred at night, struck every so often. Six years ago, a particularly violent quake took down the storehouse in Langleey. Luckily, nobody had been inside at the time.

Arkk could only imagine the troubles if the entire mountain decided to collapse in on itself. He knew from sending a few of the lesser servants around the academy to see if they could find a Heart that a huge chunk of the mountain was hollow winding pathways and large empty rooms. Without the reinforcement magic that lined the walls of Fortress Al-Mir, he could easily imagine a strong quake causing cave-ins and collapses.

Luckily, four inquisitors still drew attention. Especially when they were rushing through the hallways. Even during an emergency, nobody wanted to get in their way. Arkk, with them, had a clear path out of the academy.

Warning bells tolled all across the city. The heavy, resounding ringing was the first evidence beyond the tremor that something had gone wrong. Some small part of him expected fires torching the city with columns of smoke flooding into the sky, golden rays slicing through the very mountain, and bombardment magic crashing down and leveling the city.

From the elevated exit of the academy, high enough to look over most but not all of Cliff, he could see to the harbor and beyond. There were fires, but hardly the raging inferno of war. A large hazy dome covered most of the city, the same anti-bombardment magic that he and Sylvara had maintained at Elmshadow when Evestani had first assaulted it, except expanded to encompass the entirety of the city of Cliff. It was stretched and oblong, sealing off the city, the harbor, the Grand Old Church, and a good half of the mountainside that gave Cliff its name.

The magic stemmed from the garrison, blooming out from the mountainside building.

Ripples and cracks formed as bright points on the dome flashed in the direction of the harbor. It was only then that he realized where the commotion was coming from.

There were no golden rays, no statues of gold, no Evestani armies marching through the streets.

Out beyond the protective dome, far out at sea, he spotted the source of the commotion. At first, he had thought they were nothing more than large fishing vessels. Fishing was one of Cliff’s main sources of food. The harbor always had numerous vessels coming and going. He had been awed by them upon first arriving at Cliff, but after having been around as often as he had, they were a simple and regular part of the scenery.

Today, those ships were gone. Sunk, perhaps, by the trio of large vessels out in the distance.

These were no ordinary vessels. Even from this distance, Arkk could see that they dwarfed the fishing boats he was accustomed to. They were sleek, dark, and menacing, with bright white sails underneath black flags. All three were angled so that the broadsides of the vessels were aimed at the city. As he watched, bright flashes of light cascaded along the side of the lead ship. Moments after, more ripples cascaded across the dome’s surface.

“What are those?” Arkk asked. “Pirates?”

He had heard tales of the raiders of the high seas from people who passed through Langleey Village. Such stories were few and far between, however. Most mercenaries and travelers who visited the village weren’t the sort to go out on the oceans and, in turn, sailors didn’t often visit Langleey. Still, everyone had heard of pirates.

Had they heard of the troubles Cliff was going through and thought it might be an easy raiding target?

But Lui was shaking her head. “Not pirates,” she said, her voice grim. “The ships are too well armed.”

“It isn’t Evestani,” Arkk said, squinting to try to see the emblem on the flag. Without a spyglass or crystal ball, it was just too far to see clearly. Still, he felt confident in that statement. Not including their base foot soldiers, who Hawkwood suspected were hastily pressed conscripts, Evestani had a habit of slathering gold color on everything.

None of the inquisitors with him offered an answer. They didn’t have anything that would let them see easier either.

“We’ll head to the garrison,” Lui said, “and ensure that they can operate the defenses for a length of time.”

Lui didn’t stick around for any responses. She, the chronicler, and the purifier hurried off, breaking into a hasty jog as they made their way down the street.

For a moment, it looked like Sylvara was going to head out with them. Arkk knew from experience that Sylvara had the magical capacity to keep up with even him while operating a ritual circle. But she hesitated, looking back to the harbor. Or, more specifically, the Grand Old Church. The tall spire was missing entirely and a chunk of the rounded front had collapsed. A column of smoke drifted off into the dome.

Arkk knew he had a bit of a different perspective on the Abbey compared to most but he knew that even if she disagreed with their practices, Sylvara still had friends among the Abbey. “Go,” he said. “Do what you need to do.”

“And you?”

“I assume the city has some way of fighting back on its own,” he said, somewhat uncertain. There were the great ballistae at the city gates, but those were intended to repel an army coming down the relatively narrow pass, not defend from the sea. There weren’t any obvious defenses near the harbor. “I’ll gather who I can from my people.”

Agnete, the spellcaster team—with the bombardment rituals being affixed within the Walking Fortress, they would have to help out with what defensive and offensive magics the garrison had—and all the soldiers he could rally from Al-Mir. If these ships tried to land and drop off soldiers, they would be in for a surprise. Priscilla was nearing the portal in the Underworld as well, carrying Leda and…

Well, Arkk wasn’t too sure how to feel about what those two had been up to. It would be something to figure out once they arrived. But if they could help here…

“Weren’t you trying to keep your relation to Katja a secret?” Sylvara asked.

Arkk pressed his lips together. “I’m not going to stand aside while people’s lives are at stake for pragmatism. Besides, Company Al-Mir has fought to defend the people of Mystakeen. Katja, Duke Woldair. It doesn’t matter who is in charge.”

“Being able to deploy a force within minutes of the attack is going to raise questions. With the Prince’s imminent arrival, your forces occupying part of the city will raise even more. I’m not saying to stand around and watch, but simply to act intelligently about it.”

Arkk hummed, accepting her advice for what it was. It got him thinking, however. “Does this have anything to do with the Prince, do you think? These aren’t his ships, are they? Come to soften up the city before his forces arrive?”

Sylvara looked back to the harbor and slowly shook her head. “I don’t believe so. The flags, the black and white, don’t match with either the Principality of Vaales—who favor red and gold—or the predominantly blue Kingdom of Chernlock.”

“I suppose it is good that he isn’t sieging his kinsmen… But I doubt he’ll be happy to arrive in the city like this.”

“If we were hoping to have him in a good mood—”

Sylvara cut off as a series of large cracking fissures split through the protective dome. The entire spell wavered, flickered, and fell as the cracks merged together. Several more flashes on the sides of the ships, followed by loud, thundering bangs echoing over the city. Fresh fires erupted throughout the streets, shaking the ground. Most seemed focused on Katja’s manor, but a separate magical spell around the manor kept it safe.

As soon as the volley of attacks subsided, the dome over the city blossomed anew. Perhaps Lui had made it and was now standing in place.

Sylvara said nothing more. With a curt nod to Arkk, she took off in a sprint through the city, leaving Arkk behind.

She didn’t want Arkk overtly showing his hand. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be prepared for the worst. Turning, he headed back into the academy. It took a bit of pushing to get through the crowd of people who stepped outside and immediately started gaping at the sight of the city being attacked. Without the inquisitors clearing the way, he had to do a bit of pushing and shoving. At least for a moment.

His anger must have gotten the best of him. A red light tinged his surroundings. Once that happened, everyone did their best to clear his path. He considered trying to calm himself down, glowing eyes were a bit notable even in the chaos, but it was too useful.

The crowd thinned out and, before long, Arkk found himself back in the winding corridors that had been left vacant for centuries. He walked past the room that they had been using for their meeting and to a long corridor without any apparent doors. Apparent doors being the keyword.

Utilizing a small bit of mind magic, courtesy of Savren, nobody would see anything amiss with the large blank wall. They would walk right past it. Even Agnete on the hunt wouldn’t notice.

Arkk pushed into the wall, opening a door to a room containing a teleportation ritual circle.

In a few quick hops, he was back at Fortress Al-Mir. He quickly checked through all the local employees, their current readiness state, and any other assets he had available. Both Luthor at Elmshadow and Harvey at Al-Mir were trying to get his attention. He didn’t have to guess what his scrying team wanted to tell him, but he still teleported straight to Harvey.

The flopkin jolted at his sudden arrival but quickly collected himself.

“Sir! Movement at Moonshine Burg. Evestani is advancing across Mystakeen again.”

That removed most doubt Arkk had about the allegiance of the ships at Cliff, though he still wasn’t sure why they lacked the golden eagle of Evestani on their flag. “Toward Elmshadow?”

“Too early to tell. They only set out a short while ago.”

“Keep me updated,” Arkk said. As he spoke, he dropped a small stone beside Luthor’s station at the Walking Fortress. A pre-arranged indicator that he heard the call for attention and was deliberately disregarding it for the time being. Through the employee link, he could see Luthor’s crystal ball showing off the same army movements that Harvey’s was. “I need—”

“There is one other thing, Sir.”

“Cliff? I know.”

“Cliff?” Harvey said, sounding confused. He shook his head, sending his long, rabbit-like ears flopping about his head. “No, this.”

Leaning over the crystal ball, Harvey changed the view to focus on a part of the army that had Arkk scowling in confusion. There were… hundreds of soldiers. But they didn’t look like Evestani troops. They wore solid black armor with long white capes. The armor was high quality. He could tell just from a glance that it was far, far beyond the roughshod armor that most Evestani conscripts received.

Their elite force? Held in reserve until now? It seemed strange that they wouldn’t have brought them out while reinforcing Elmshadow before Arkk’s attack, but…

He frowned, narrowing his eyes. The large pauldrons each wore had a symbol on their shoulders. Nine white swords arrayed around a ring, pointed outwards. None had a single fleck of gold anywhere.

Arkk reached out, taking control of the crystal ball. He redirected its viewpoint to Cliff, focusing on the ships assaulting the city. Harvey made a slight squeaking sound upon seeing the attack, but Arkk ignored him. He focused on the flags over the battleships.

Black with nine white swords arrayed around a ring.

“Well,” Arkk said. “That answers that.”

“That’s it?”

“What were you expecting, elf? Everything in this world lies in ruins. You thought this would be different?”

Alya narrowed her eyes at Olatt’an, but he brushed it off.

They were here. They were finally here.

The lost city of Iuzz’ovra. Said to be the homeland of the orcs. Legend held that it was once a grand and beautiful land. Now it sat in silent desolation. Iuzz’ovra was designed to be in harmony with the peculiar environment of the Underworld. Similar to the cathedrals of the Cloak of Shadows or the towering mobile fortress that Arkk had moved to the portal entrance, its buildings were crafted from stones that seemed to absorb the faint everlasting twilight of the realm.

He could only imagine what it had looked like in its prime.

Time and fate had not been kind to the once-thriving city. Like much of the Underworld, pillars and buildings had crumbled and fallen. The roads had been buried beneath a layer of the wasteland’s sand and dirt. Hulking metal monstrosities, vaguely shaped like humanoids, sat rusted and broken throughout the city. A fortification stood tall as the dominant feature of the city’s skyline. Once upon a time, it might have rivaled the grandeur of the Bastion City in Chernlock or Cliff’s own Grand Old Church. Now, a full quarter of it had crumbled completely and the remainder stood at a precarious lean, feeling as if a slight breeze might send the rest of it tumbling to the ground.

That crumbled portion of the fortification allowed him to see something that stood behind. A great crystalline archway that peeked just around the side of the fortification. A silvery, rippling surface like a pool turned on its side occupied the interior of the arch.

Years, decades… eons of lost lore and history. All that cultural enrichment unfortunately paled in comparison to the archway.

“Well, elf. You told me of your people’s legends. Perhaps it is time to find out if my people’s legends hold some truth. Perhaps I can still succeed where you failed.”

 

 

“There are three methods through which the Abbey of the Light creates countermeasures for abominations. Each depends on the level of access we have to the subject.”

Sylvara Astra sat atop an unused desk in the back of Cliff’s magical academy. While she maintained her air of professionalism, she also seemed far more relaxed than any other time Arkk had seen her. Given that those other times involved a siege, limb loss, and long recovery, he wasn’t all that surprised by the ease in her demeanor.

On the other hand, Inquisitrix Lui sat perfectly still, watching with narrowed eyes and arms crossed over her chest. Whenever Arkk glanced in her direction, he found himself on the receiving end of a glare that could level mountains. He wasn’t entirely certain that Sylvara’s decision to include her was the right one. It felt like the first wrong question or comment would get that tattooed purifier set on him.

“Ideally, we have direct and cooperative access to subjects. Purifier Irina here,” Sylvara continued, waving a lazy hand at the purifier, who sat just to Lui’s side, still looking content with the situation. “She approached the Abbey, asking for help sealing an uncontrollable power. That allowed a progressive, mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“If you don’t mind me asking…”

“She’s a luck vampire, among other things,” Lui answered with a stilling glare toward Sylvara, clearly not intending to offer anything more detailed than that.

She didn’t need to. Among the pantheon, Arkk knew of only one figure that would be associated with Luck. The Fickle Wheel. The god of luck, misfortune, and random chance. Patron god of gamblers everywhere, at least back in Vezta’s day.

Vampire carried some implications. Namely, that of a creature that feasted on other beings, mostly humans and demihumans. There were said to be vampires inhabiting the forest near Darkwood Burg, as well as other places, but Arkk had never actually encountered one. Supposedly, they could blend in with demihumans to the point where it was difficult to discover one.

A luck vampire would, logically, feast on the luck of others, diminishing their luck to raise her own? Uncontrollably, if Irina had needed the Abbey’s help in getting the ability under control. Arkk couldn’t picture luck as some kind of commodity that could be moved between people, nor what tangible effects losing or gaining luck could have.

Luck and misfortune were just terms to describe whether or not the outcome of a situation was beneficial or detrimental. At least, in general use. How such terms might behave under the power of a supposed god of luck was another question entirely.

Either that one ability was so destructive or otherwise inconvenient that Irina had to find help dealing with it… or there was more to her abilities. Given the way Lui shut down the question before he managed to ask it fully, Arkk was betting on the latter.

Still, it was a basepoint for potentially dealing with that ability.

“Through various methods of research,” Sylvara continued, “the Abbey’s Binding Specialists developed a ritual array that would vent conceptual luck back into the environment, effectively nullifying the danger posed.”

Arkk’s eyes flicked up to the glowing tattoos that adorned Irina’s forehead. They didn’t look like any ritual array that he was familiar with. Perhaps that was the point. If luck was a commodity, couldn’t an array like that be used on anyone to diminish their luck and, perhaps, raise that of someone else? The Abbey wouldn’t want that kind of magic out in public, able to be studied by anyone like Zullie who happened to spot it.

Presumably, it could be turned off somehow, allowing the purifier to carry out her job.

“Tybalt represents the second method of creating a Binding Agent. Uncooperative capture. While Tybalt’s ability was devastating, it required specific motions of his hands. Thus, the Abbey was able to capture him and study him simply by keeping his hands locked in iron gloves. The manacles developed to counteract his abilities did not have any benefit as Irina’s tattoos do. They utilized a planar array to redirect the magic his body produced into an alternate plane.”

For some reason, Arkk wasn’t surprised to hear that the Abbey engaged in anathema like planar magic. He simply nodded his head. “And the third method, I presume, is for when you lack any access to the avatar?”

“Correct,” Sylvara said, drumming her gloved hand against the top of the desk as she leaned back against the wall. “It essentially involves creating active items that work to counteract abilities, often using the principle of polar opposites. For example, a marble made of magical ice to shut down intense flames.”

It was Arkk’s turn to narrow his eyes. Agnete had never shared much about her past. In fact, she rarely talked of her time with the inquisitors—never spoke of a time before that—only offering information about the inquisitors when asked. He knew that, before contracting with him, she had not handled the presence of flames well.

It was easy to imagine a young woman, swept up in the intoxicating power, dragging a burning wall of flames behind her as she walked from one end of the Kingdom to the other. But that wasn’t who she was today. Hearing about her past, especially outside her presence, felt like a violation.

For a moment, Arkk thought Sylvara had seen something in his expression. She stopped talking, shifting in discomfort. It wasn’t until he noted the readying postures of Lui and her chronicler that Arkk realized a red hue had overtaken most of the room. Even the calm purifier shifted, moving her hand toward the waist of her long coat.

Closing his eyes, taking a breath, and reopening them, Arkk noted the lack of red. “Let’s not discuss Agnete for the moment and focus more on the how. Specifically the how this relates to the Heart of Gold’s avatar.”

“Very well,” Sylvara said. “This last method is often hit-or-miss. Sometimes doing nothing at all. Other times killing the subject outright. There isn’t usually much time or many opportunities to test the objects before use.”

“I don’t particularly care if we kill the avatar. Or, rather, killing the avatar would probably be a positive.”

“Normally, if the object is ineffective, the Abbey simply tries a second time. Or third. Or tenth… However, this case is slightly less advantageous to us. If we reveal our hand without success, the avatar will know we’re working to counteract his powers. He has an entire nation at his back, researchers, personnel, and material. He isn’t some loner out causing havoc that has no support.”

Arkk nodded his head. “Best not act prematurely.”

“The first step is identifying the true nature of the ability. Something like fire is fairly obvious. Other things aren’t. The abilities that the avatar of Evestani displays are wild and varied, far more so than typical purifiers, with little theme aside from the color.”

“That might be a problem for an ignorant observer, but we know that this is the avatar of the Heart of Gold. The god of wealth, greed, gold, purity, and possessions.”

“Which allows us to better identify the true counter for the ability,” Sylvara finished. “After that, we develop an object, usually utilizing more planar magic, that embodies, produces, or otherwise leaks the ability’s counter.”

Arkk looked upward, thinking. There were sixteen members of the Pantheon, according to Vezta. But thinking over the names, he wasn’t sure that they all had direct counters. Some were obvious. The Holy Light and the Cloak of Shadows seemed like they would counteract each other. As Sylvara had mentioned Agnete, the Burning Forge and the Eternal Permafrost were fairly obvious. He knew for a fact that the ice marble was, in some way, related to the Permafrost simply because of how Priscilla reacted to it.

But…

Blinking, Arkk looked back down. “The ice marble is linked to the Permafrost? Directly, I mean.” He knew it was linked, but for it to be a bit of planar magic—magic bridging the planes…

“I was able to peruse the development records for Purifier Agnete’s Binding Agent. It is a solidified piece of planar magic linked to a realm of… well, ice, essentially. There is no mention of any other deities in any of the Abbey’s records.”

Arkk pondered over the latter half of what Sylvara said. The marble was planar magic from a realm of ice, presumably some kind of minor, mobile portal structure that could be opened, unleashing that ice.

He had access to the Underworld. Could he make a Cloak of Shadows marble? Something that blasted darkness around instead of ice?

That was something to think about. Zullie had become somewhat obsessed with Xel’atriss, but perhaps this would be a good way to get her on an alternative project.

“I’ll get Vezta’s opinion on which of the Pantheon is most opposed to the Heart of Gold. She’ll know better than anyone,” Arkk said, opening his eyes once again. “Once we have a target, how do we create the object?”

Sylvara didn’t respond right away. She had a look on her face like she didn’t want to deliver bad news. “For that, I have to hope that your esoteric researchers will have some ideas,” she said after a moment. “I know some of the how, but I would need access to the plane. The way the Abbey does it is to use our oracles to hone in on the requisite plane.”

“And getting access to an oracle will be difficult, I presume?”

“Practically speaking? Impossible.”

Arkk almost said that he had done a lot of impossible things in the last year. Convincing someone to work with him—or kidnapping someone and forcing them to help—sounded like a small bump in the road compared to traversing to the Underworld or conversing with a god. Still, he would probably have asked Zullie first before trying to get more help from the Abbey, so no point mentioning that in front of Lui.

He could tell just from the aura around her that Sylvara was spilling more of the Abbey’s secrets and methods than she would prefer.

“I’ll have to see what they can come up with,” Arkk said.

“There is something that might help with that,” Sylvara said, reaching back behind the table to lug up a narrow metal container. “Before I left, the High Librarian came to me, saying that she had an object in one of the archives that could possibly assist with my task.”

“You discussed this with other people?”

“No,” Sylvara said as she unlatched the metal case’s lid. “But Vrox and I often went to the High Librarian when we needed to find certain tomes for our research. It wouldn’t be hard to figure out what we were planning based on that.”

Cracking open the lid, Sylvara carefully reached both hands into the container. She withdrew a large chunk of vaguely yellow iridescent crystal. It was larger at one end and narrower at the other, like a wedge that didn’t merge into a single point. A large rune was carved into one side, though Arkk didn’t recognize the symbol.

“I’m not sure what this is,” Sylvara said. “The High Librarian said that someone I choose to share it with might know. So, Arkk. Know what it is?”

He had an idea, though he wasn’t sure how he would utilize it. Zullie might know, however.

It was a part of a portal. The large crystalline archway in Fortress Al-Mir was made of the same material. It also had runes scrawled across it. Judging by its shape, it was something like a keystone.

Arkk didn’t open his mouth. Lui and her chronicler were staring at him just as much as Sylvara, if not more. Even if they did want the avatar dead and Evestani stopped, just outright admitting that he had some high anathema magics so easily accessible seemed foolish.

“Possibly,” Arkk settled on, looking back to Sylvara. “I’ll have to consult with my researchers to be certain.”

Looking disappointed, Sylvara replaced the crystal in its container. “In that case, I suppose we should get to the crux of why we’re here. Not that these other things aren’t important to discuss…”

He pressed his lips together, wondering if there was another topic he could shift to. On the walk over to the academy from the slums, he had already gone over the small talk, politely asking how the journey from Chernlock was and what the weather was like down there at this time of year.

Dry and chilly, apparently. Arkk had never been, but he did know most of Chernlock was a desert. Most of the population down there built along the central river that cut through the land, one of the three great oases, or along the coast.

“Regarding the coming disaster,” Sylvara said slowly.

Arkk sighed. He didn’t think anyone would blame him for wanting to put that talk off just a little longer.

“I presume it isn’t an immediate threat, or we would have focused on it first.”

Sylvara shifted, then glanced over to Lui.

The other inquisitrix pursed her lips, then said, “Oracles do not provide a precise analysis of any situation. But the closer to the present an event is, the clearer their description will be. As portents of events to come may appear suddenly and without warning, they are surrounded at all times by chroniclers whose duties include nothing more than writing down everything that goes on in the oracle’s life. Any event is then sent to the interpreters for…”

“Interpretation?” Arkk guessed.

Lui narrowed her eyes, then looked to the unassuming man who had thus far not said a word. Chronicler Klink reached into the vest of his coat and pulled out a rather thick notebook, bound in black leather. Reaching into the other side of his coat, he pulled out a single monocle and, squinting with both eyes, peered down into his book.

He cleared his throat.

“Under a veil of sorrow, the ground does quake, Its heartbeat stutters, fearing the ache. Hope’s flame wanes thin beneath night’s heavy shawl, While a mournful wind’s cry foretells the fall.

“The wave advances, not of water, but of will, seeking to take, to conquer, to kill. Yet, beneath the surface, where currents collide, the solution lies in darkness, to confide.

“In a time when day bleeds into night, and the stars hide, fearing the coming light. A guardian rises, not from myth or lore, holding the key to a long-locked door.

“A beacon for the lost, in the darkest of fights, a secret bond forms of twilight heights. Joining in to dance where umbra exists, the keeper of lanes, In silent accord, illuminating borders, they forge chains. The storm’s fury grows and greed claims the day, hope seems but a whisper, swiftly swept away. Claiming every tomorrow, every dream, every stash, leaving echoes of a world in the gloom of the ash.”

Arkk, hands clenched together in unusual tension, waited for more. Another paragraph. Another line.

But Klink had other plans. With another slight clearing of his throat, he pulled the lens from the crook of his eye and placed it back in his pocket along with the leather-bound book. He looked up and around the room with his lips pursed into a thin smile.

“That’s it?” Arkk said.

“That’s it,” Klink said.

“Isn’t there a stanza missing? Some bit about how the world is saved in the end?”

“Most oracular insights aren’t quite so lengthy,” Klink continued. “Often, they’re far more relevant to upcoming events in the next week or month. This seems to encompass a great many events, an already difficult endeavor. To then see the outcome in the end would be unheard of.”

Arkk hissed out a pained sigh. “I don’t like the last line ending in gloom and ash.”

“I very much doubt the oracles care for your likes and dislikes.”

“Enough,” Lui cut in. “Arkk. Does anything stand out to you in particular?”

Practically every line had at least one word that could have meaning. Multiple meanings, if he spent any time trying to parse them out. But the biggest bit that struck him as something relevant had to be… “The third verse. A guardian rises, holding the key to a long-locked door?” He didn’t want to sound arrogant, but he felt that referred to him.

That single line could be interpreted in a dozen different ways. A long-locked door could easily refer to the portal to the Underworld. Xel’atriss, Lock and Key, who seemed to be mentioned indirectly, was the one to open that portal but now it was him who had access to it. And what was he if not someone who had risen from nothing to, now, guard the land from Evestani and the Golden Order?

The end of the previous verse mentioned a solution beneath the surface. If the guardian rising was related to that…

He looked around the room, feeling an odd knot in his stomach. Lui stared at him with that same ire that she had shown since first walking into the tavern. But now, he could detect a hint of resignation behind that gaze. Sylvara as well, though her gaze was more pitying than angry.

They caught that verse too. Whatever else the rest meant, they believed that one verse related to him. He didn’t know how they had come to that conclusion. Although Sylvara knew more than most because of his invitation to a meeting or two before she departed for Cliff and Chernlock, she shouldn’t know about the portal or the Lock and Key.

Sylvara would work with him until the Heart of Gold’s avatar suffered a final death. Lui, on the other hand, he had been uncertain about her presence here. Now it made more sense. She—both of them—believed he was the answer to this coming disaster.

“I don’t suppose your interpreters have better ideas than what I’m thinking,” Arkk said slowly, not holding out his hopes for anything.

“A revelation of this potency is unprecedented,” Klink said with a wistful smile. “The Ecclesiarch has quashed discussion of the matter until the interpreters have concluded their debates, but those are looking rather endless at this point. They don’t even rhyme, normally,” he added as a delightful afterthought.

“The only reason we are aware,” Sylvara said, gesturing from herself to Lui with her gloved hand, “is that Vrox heard these words in person and sent the letter to Cliff ahead of my arrival. As a close confidant of mine, Lui received it and… read it without realizing it wasn’t meant for her eyes. Though it wasn’t until I arrived and was able to explain a few things that we came to this joint effort.”

“I merely seek the truth of the matter,” Lui said, back stiffening. “The oracles are attempting to gather as much information as possible to make their operations as reliable as possible.”

“You’re going to inform them of your findings, I take it?” Arkk asked.

“Naturally. The sooner this can be parsed correctly…”

The sooner Lui could assault him without fear of ruining the one hope mentioned in all that drivel. Assuming they found some other guardian.

Frankly, he would be happy if they did. There were enough weights on his back as it was. He didn’t need to add the weight of the entire world onto it as well.

“In any case, the interpreters are still arguing,” Sylvara said. “We don’t know what form this disaster will take or even how soon it will occur. It might not be until well after our lifetimes. There are only three prophecies of similar magnitude in all of the Abbey’s history and none of them were retroactively assigned events for centuries after their original inception.”

“Given my luck,” he said with a small glance at the purifier, “the world is going to end tomorrow morn—”

A sharp jolt of a quake kicked the floor, shaking the books from the shelves and knocking dust from the ceiling.

Arkk was on his feet immediately, as were the inquisitors, though he almost tumbled to the floor as a second jolt shook the academy.

He waited, stance wide and steady. But no third quake hit the room. That did nothing to ease the tension.

Sylvara’s red eyes swiveled in his direction. “You were saying?”

Arkk just grit his teeth. “Maybe luck is real after all,” he mumbled to himself.

 

 

 

The chamber, dimly lit by specially tuned glowstones to keep the light levels low, was thick with the scent of magic. It was practically tangible, more akin to the air in the Underworld. It was a different sort of magic, however, yet one familiar to Arkk. Now that he was experiencing it for a third time, he could easily pick up on Xel’atriss, Lock and Key’s touch of magic in the air.

Claire, once a formidable dark elf warrior, now lay vulnerable on the bed. Her body, wracked by the unseen forces of the god of boundaries, barriers, and separation, had an almost imperceptible layer of ghostly shimmering covering every visible part of her. Project Liminal was designed to explore the limits of physical and magical realms.

Claire hadn’t lost her eyes over it, but the way she stared around the room, eyes tracking things that Arkk couldn’t perceive, made him wonder if she hadn’t lost something more.

“How are you feeling?” Arkk asked, his voice soft and concerned. He watched, already able to hear Kia’s irritated voice telling them both that she had told them so.

Claire turned her head to face him. Ghostly trails of afterimages followed the motion, each moving ever so slightly out of sync with her head. A lock of hair fell in a different place in one. In another, her face twisted in a grimace. A hundred different afterimages blurred together until they merged back with her actual head.

The afterimages didn’t stop there. They lurched upward, bending and twisting in silvery, translucent shapes that blurred and shifted into an indistinct blob. Arkk watched, feeling ill at ease yet forcing himself to stand firm. He was the one who had brought her here. He had a responsibility to Claire.

The movement of the ghostly shapes coalesced into one, slowly gaining definition as more and more settled into place. At the end of it, Claire was left sitting on the edge of her bed, elbows propped up on her knees with her head held in her hands.

“Dizzy,” she said, the one word multiplying in the air around the small chamber as if spoken by a dozen different versions of Claire at once. “Better than I was yesterday.”

“Quite a remarkable recovery,” Zullie said, stepping forward from her perch at the back wall. “In a week, I imagine you’ll be back to your old self. Mentally, if not physically.”

“I’ve meticulously mended her mind, merging multiple meandering memories into a single, seamless self,” Savren said. “From this frontier, her fate hinges wholly on herself.”

“Multiple memories?” Arkk asked, raising an eyebrow. He hadn’t heard anything like that during Zullie’s briefing on Project Liminal.

“Claire is currently experiencing reality on several different layers and can act independently on each of those layers,” Zullie said, sparing Arkk from having to parse Savren’s curse. “I should have expected it, but each version of herself had its own separate thoughtstream that stemmed from the… Claire Prime. Savren performed a little magic to help merge them into one contiguous thoughtstream, which has helped with her… recovery.”

“I see,” Arkk said, not quite sure what he saw. “Was it…” He looked from Zullie to Claire. “Was it worth it? Or…”

“You tell me,” Zullie said, reaching into her pocket. She withdrew a dozen smooth river stones, all gripped in her fist. “Claire, don’t get hit.”

Without any further warning for the impaired dark elf, Zullie flung the entire fistful of rocks.

Arkk, surprised at the sudden attack, teleported backward out of the way of more than a few that had gone wide, only to realize that he had left Claire completely exposed to the rain of stones. He tried to teleport her away, only for his grip on her to slip as her form blurred with thousands of ghostly afterimages.

The ghostly versions of Claire raised their hands, each moving in a different place. For just a bare instant, those hands solidified one after another the moment the rocks hit before fading back into ghostly afterimages. The rocks fell harmlessly to the ground. The blurred versions of Claire merged back into one, leaving her right where she had been before Zullie threw the rocks, sitting on the side of her bed with her head in her hands.

“Good,” Zullie said, glasses gleaming in front of her eyeless sockets. “Now catch.” Pinching a blade between her fingers, Zullie drew back and flung it across the room. The clumsy throw couldn’t compare to the accuracy Lexa could wield. Even before it left her grip, Arkk could tell that it would go wide.

But the ghostly shimmerings twisted and moved to push the blur that was Claire into the way. A few looked like they got hit, but the blade passed through them without apparent harm. One afterimage grabbed hold of the hilt, solidifying for just an instant before snapping back to Claire.

Claire transitioned from sitting on the bed to standing in a ready pose without actually crossing the intervening space. She just reappeared where one of the afterimages had been, now holding onto the knife.

“And slice,” Zullie said, tossing a much larger stone across the room.

Once again, Claire’s afterimages moved while leaving Claire Prime in her stance. A few stumbled and staggered, looking more intoxicated than anything else, but several still managed to swing the knife Claire now held down on the stone.

Arkk wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. The blade had looked entirely mundane in Zullie’s hands. No matter how sharp it was, it would have just clanged off the stone. Or, since the stone was moving, just knocked it down while likely chipping and dulling the metal.

The stone split clean in two.

Claire wasn’t done there. Another afterimage was already in position, swinging the blade horizontally to cut the two halves into four. Those afterimages multiplied, each swinging at the stone until nothing was left but dust drifting to the floor.

Claire stood, all the ghosts of herself collapsing into one. She straightened her shoulders, looking down at the remnants of the rock with something akin to utter disdain. Arkk could only imagine that she was picturing the golden knight in its place. Her moment of victory didn’t last long before she blurred once again, with all the versions of herself looking like they were retching onto the floor.

The real her wiped at her lips with a foul grimace. “I think I just threw up in a thousand different ways.”

“Not surprising,” Zullie said. “At least you held yourself together for the entire demonstration this time. Get some rest.”

Claire nodded her head. One of her dropped the knife on the table while the rest just sort of drifted back to the bed where she reformed properly, already underneath the blanket.

Zullie looked to Arkk. Even without eyes, she managed an expectant look.

Deciding to not disturb Claire further, or allow Zullie to throw more things at her, Arkk teleported himself, Savren, and Zullie to the adjoining laboratory room. Zullie’s primary workshop deep within Fortress Al-Mir. Arcane sigils and half-formed ritual circles covered practically every surface while papers and tomes had been left scattered on tables, chairs, and even the floor.

“Well? Impressed?”

Considering for a short moment, Arkk allowed himself a nod of his head. “If she recovers fully, I’ll be very impressed. To the point where I’ll wonder if you can’t do that to me.”

“She’s sensed a semblance of separation, seemingly sprung from her less-than-singular sensation of reality. Such severance may steadfastly stay, scarcely subsiding.”

“Claire has expressed feeling like she doesn’t quite belong,” Zullie clarified. “Like she’s living outside where everyone else is living. I presume this is a mental issue,” she dismissed with a shrug. “Time will tell whether she gets over it or not.”

Arkk pressed his lips together. Of course, there was a greater issue.

“Continuing your concept,” Savren said, “your connection to the core constitutes a challenge that could render such risky research applied to you remarkably… risky.”

“My connection… The Heart?” Arkk asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Claire doesn’t exactly exist in our layer of reality as much as she used to. It isn’t a problem for her, metaphysically speaking, but for you? Well, I don’t know much about these Hearts, but we do have an example in Priscilla regarding what happens if you break them. And you, Arkk, are far less hardy than a dragonoid.”

“Right,” Arkk said. Claire was still his employee, he could sense that much. But the way his attempt to teleport her out of harm’s way had failed… “No experimenting with anything that might break the Heart or my connection to it.”

“In any case,” Zullie said, “with the obvious success of Project Liminal, I was wondering if you might be reinterested in revisiting Project Sunder. It’s based partially on the same principles, so…”

“For now, focus on Claire. I…” Arkk pursed his lips together. The Prince was practically at Cliff already. If the man decided to summon his demon, their best bet for dealing with it wasn’t out of bed. “I need to get to Cliff.”

There were a few meetings he needed to conduct before the Prince’s arrival.

Arkk glanced up and down the empty street deep within the slums near Cliff’s harbor. Most of the general population wouldn’t recognize him. Being completely unseen wasn’t his goal, otherwise he would have tunneled as far as he could before surfacing. He just needed to make sure he avoided anyone associated with the Abbey of the Light. Or Lady Katja.

He would visit her later, after his current task was finished.

For now, he made his way through the narrow, winding alleys, wrinkling his nose at the smell in the air. The salt-sea air stung at his nose, mixing with the stench of refuse and stagnation. Streams of murky water meandered along the uneven cobblestones. The buildings, a patchwork of salvaged wood, stone, and metal, leaned against one another for support, all slowly rotting away from the salty air.

Not much had changed since Arkk’s last visit to Cliff. It was a bit disappointing to see. He knew Katja wasn’t going to focus on rebuilding the district in which most of the city’s non-humans lived, but he had been hoping that some positive changes would sweep through simply because of the Duke’s absence. Then again, it had only been a month. Two? How long had it been?

Time seemed to have slipped away from him. He had been so focused on Elmshadow, both before and after retaking it from Evestani, that the days had blurred together.

Either way, no change would happen overnight. If, in a year, the slums were still as they were today, he might put a little pressure on Katja to improve conditions. Assuming the city hadn’t fallen under rays of gold or been torn to shreds by the claws of a demon.

The muscular form of a hulking minotaur came up the alley as Arkk walked down it. Minotaurs were rare, something he had only heard of in stories. He didn’t think any lived outside the lands of the Beastmen Tribes further west even Evestani. They were tall beings—not as tall as the Protector’s bodies, but still tall enough to see the roofs of the shorter buildings around the slums. Where Protectors were thin and lithe, more like spiders, minotaurs were the exact opposite, thick and bulky with layers of muscle. Their skin was more like stone and the coarse fur that grew across their bodies was thick enough to stop an arrow.

Seeing it, Arkk almost offered it a job on the spot.

But he wasn’t here for recruitment today. He simply stepped aside, letting the minotaur pass. Each footfall of its hooves shook the ground. As soon as it was on its way, Arkk leaned down to the shadow trailing after him.

“Do you think you can find that one later, maybe feel out for any interest in working with us?”

Lexa pulled back her hood just enough for Arkk to see her red eyebrow half up her forehead. “I think it would be hard not to find a minotaur. Did you see the size of that thing? I’m as big as its thumb.”

She was exaggerating. Though, perhaps from the perspective of a gremlin, it really felt like that.

“I wonder what it is doing here,” Lexa continued with a small hum.

“Might be another thing to find out,” Arkk said. It wasn’t just the distance from the Beastmen Tribes that was odd. Demihumans and the more humanoid beastmen were generally accepted in human-occupied towns and villages—or, in Cliff, perhaps tolerated was the right word. But the further a species strayed from human, the less likely they would find themselves welcome. They either had to be unassuming and obviously not threats, like flopkin, or they had to be useful, like harpies.

Arkk didn’t believe for a moment that minotaurs were rampaging bulls ready to go wild at the slightest provocation. But the fact that it could crush someone under its hoof and probably only notice as an afterthought would frighten a great many humans… and likely others as well. Gremlins, for instance.

“After our meeting, see what you can find out.”

“Sure thing.”

It wasn’t long before they arrived at their destination. A run-down old tavern that looked like the mold and mildew were holding it together more than the nails jutting out from its wooden planks at odd angles. Strangely enough, it wasn’t far from the Primrose Inn, which was in far better shape. The Primrose tried for at least a mild air of welcoming.

This, The Burned Cauldron, looked like it was trying to ward off customers.

Arkk stepped inside and immediately coughed at the smoke-filled air. He wafted his hand back and forth in front of his face. It didn’t help. Narrowing his eyes, he looked around and found his target seated in the far back corner. He was leaning half out of his chair to reach toward another table, trying to slip a coin purse off an orc’s belt.

“Lovely,” Arkk mumbled to himself as he made his way across the room. With the chair tipped back on two legs, all it took was a light knock of his boot to tip the chair all the way over.

With a yelp and a flailing of his arms, Edvin crashed to the ground.

The orc, realizing that Edvin had his hand around the now-freed sack of coins, stood and started for a small dagger on his belt. Before he could even touch it, Lexa was perched on his shoulders with the tip of her blade pressed against his throat. The orc went utterly still, as did the rest of the room as they focused on the commotion.

Sighing, Arkk bent and plucked the coin purse from Edvin’s hand. “We have business with your friend here,” he said to the orc, tossing the pouch at its owner. “Get out.”

“You can’t just—”

Lexa dug the tip of her blade further into his throat. She barely avoided breaking his skin. Speaking the wrong word a little too carelessly would have made him cut himself.

The orc grimaced. “Sure,” he agreed easily, trying to hiss the word without moving his throat.

Lexa hopped off the orc’s shoulders with a nod from Arkk. Her cloak, adjusted so that she was more real than a transparent shadow, fluttered lightly as she stood atop the table. The orc looked like he was considering drawing his dagger again but, as his eyes roamed over that cloak, he decided on the wiser course of action. Grabbing a wooden flagon from the table, he hurried away.

Arkk turned his glare down on Edvin, who was brushing himself off as he righted his chair.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to disturb a man while he is working?” the thief grumbled.

“My mother died when I was five.”

Edvin shifted, looking uncomfortable for all of five seconds, then hastily retook his seat. “Well, it would have been less attention-grabbing if you had just let me finish.”

Arkk couldn’t deny that. Conversations around the small tavern had started back up again. He could tell that almost everyone still had their eyes on this corner.

Ah well. It wasn’t like they were going to be subtle for long. None of the people present were likely to go running to the Abbey or Katja anyway.

“It would have been less attention-grabbing if you had kept your hands to yourself,” Arkk said, sitting across the table from Edvin with his back to the wall, in clear view of the door. “I pay you to watch Katja, not steal from random people.”

Edvin lightly cleared his throat. “In fairness to me, I don’t think that purse belonged to the orc. The wear on the pouch didn’t match the rest of his attire. It was too new or well-cared for. Likely stolen from someone from a wealthier district of the city.”

Arkk sighed, long and slow. “Is there anything going on in the city that I care about?”

“Well, if you don’t care about crime rates in the city. Hmm… The Abbey of the Light has been acting strangely for the last… few weeks?”

“Stranger how?”

“See, they normally like being seen around doing things. Helping people, providing aid, and… assisting with life, I guess. Real altruistic sorts. But a few weeks ago, they shuttered the doors to all the churches in the city. The lowest acolytes are still around, maintaining the buildings and doing what little they can to carry on helping people, but there have been no Suun sermons, no sign of abbesses or priests or anyone above their standing around the city. No one but inquisitors,” Edvin hissed. “Been a number of them out at nights, moving around the city like they’re patrolling it.”

Arkk frowned, leaning back for a moment in thought. “They haven’t acted against Katja?”

“Nope. Had a meeting or two with her. They seem to want to play nice for now. One of my old buddies who’s stationed as a palace guard said that they came to warn her of potential threats to the city.”

“Palace?” Arkk started, only to shake his head. Whatever she wanted to call the Duke’s manor didn’t matter. “Warned of what? Demons?”

Edvin jolted in his seat. He promptly started looking around with obvious trepidation, as if the mere utterance of the word might bring down something unholy on their heads. “Good Light, no. Whatever gave you that idea?”

Arkk had warned Katja of the suspected dealings Prince Cedric had. But he supposed he had forgotten to warn Edvin. “It doesn’t matter. What was the meeting about?”

“It sure sounds like it matters. Why even bring those things up?”

“Edvin…”

The thief took in a breath, steadying himself. “I don’t know what the meeting was about, exactly. But it certainly wasn’t that. All I know is that Katja has been in and out of the local academy nearly every day.”

“She is a caster… One self-taught from books her old slave master had,” Arkk said slowly. “It isn’t a surprise that she would go looking for a bit more of a formal education.”

“The frequency and late hours suggest she is looking for something a little more specific,” Edvin countered. “Looking for something like how to stop… those?”

“Edvin, I’m sorry I brought anything up that made you uncomfortable. Try to forget it. It isn’t a problem yet.”

“Yet?” he squeaked.

Arkk was saved from having to say anything else with the tavern door slamming open. With his back to the wall, he didn’t need to turn to see the woman wearing a black long coat step through. She wore a large pair of round glasses that weren’t completely clear. The glass had a heavy amber tint.

Just over her shoulders, Arkk spotted two others. An unassuming man with a pendant dangling from his neck wearing attire that matched that of the inquisitor. He was bald with small, narrowed eyes as he looked around the room with suspicion. And, behind him…

Another woman. This woman, darker in skin tone than was typical of Mystakeen, likely hailed from either Chernlock or outside the kingdom entirely. Perhaps the same place as Katja. More important were the tattoos on her face and forehead. Arkk almost flung a lightning bolt the moment he saw their pale white glow, fearing the golden avatar had finally caught up to him. But the color was wrong and they were circular rather than rectangular.

They formed the familiar trio of inquisitor, chronicler, and purifier. Part of the Abbey of the Light, not his enemies.

He was still wary. The Abbey of the Light wasn’t exactly not his enemies. The fact that they were here…

“I thought you said the inquisition went out at night?” Arkk hissed as he tried to look eminently unimportant.

Edvin shrugged, his tense shoulders betraying the feelings behind the casual movement. “They were! How was I supposed to expect this?”

The purifier was the one to watch out for. Not that the other two could be dismissed easily, he had experienced that battle firsthand when Vrox and his chronicler invaded his fortress. Together, they had held off twenty combatants, including himself, Vezta, and gorgon. But they were a known factor. The purifier would have powerful magics that, until he saw what form those magics took, he wouldn’t even be able to guess at how to defend himself. Even then, based on Agnete and Tybalt’s magic, he wasn’t sure he would be able to defend himself regardless.

Despite his attempts at being just another unassuming patron of the run-down tavern, the inquisitor took one look around the room and promptly marched her way over.

The lack of magic flying through the air was something of a relief. If they knew who he was, they would know how dangerous he was. He held no doubts that Vrox had reported on his shortened castings for lightning bolts, if nothing else. Which meant this was hopefully nothing more than a social call.

Edvin hissed back, “Should have just let me take the coin purse. Then that orc wouldn’t have gone crying to the Abbey.”

“That was two minutes ago. There is no way he got an inquisitor out here that fast.”

The inquisitor’s heavy boots thumped to a stop at the edge of Arkk’s table. “The oracles foresaw your arrival.”

“Did they now?” Arkk shot a victorious look at Edvin before smiling up at the inquisitor. “Well isn’t that lovely. If you wouldn’t mind passing along a message to your oracles that I don’t exactly like to be watched, I would very much appreciate it.”

“Noted,” the inquisitor said, tone utterly flat.

“So,” Arkk said, “to what do I owe the visit, Inquisitrix..?”

“Inquisitrix Lui is enough for you,” the woman said, planting her palms on the table as she looked between Arkk and Edvin. Despite Lexa slowly creeping around the side of the table, Lui didn’t spare the cloaked gremlin a single glance.

Arkk waited a moment. Once again, the entire tavern had gone silent. Beastmen and demihumans had their eyes on his little corner of the room. So much for not raising a commotion.

“As for the purpose of the visit,” Inquisitrix Lui continued, “there has been some division in the Abbey as of late.”

“I’m terribly sorry to hear that,” Arkk lied, not that he bothered to hide his sarcasm. If they were fighting among themselves, they weren’t fighting him. “I suppose you have a lot to deal with because of that,” he said, moving to stand. “I better not take up any more of your time.”

A new voice cut in from near the door. “Leaving already, Arkk? And here I came all this way…”

Arkk blinked twice. He had been focused on the inquisitorial squad in front of him, not on the door. A woman with white hair, red eyes, and a matching inquisitorial uniform stood. She ran one thick hand, gloved in brown leather, over her hair.

She was panting, ever so slightly, as if exhausted from a long run.

“Inquisitrix Astra?”

Sylvara Astra stepped into the room, clearly trying to hide her exhaustion as she strode over with a straight back. Her gait, somewhat lopsided thanks to Hale’s work in healing her missing leg, was just a little too unsteady.

“Astra?” Sylvara asked. “Who did you have writing your letters to me?”

“I wrote them myself,” Arkk said, though he paused as he remembered something. “Or Ilya, if you remember her.”

Sylvara frowned for a moment before flicking her red eyes over to her fellow inquisitors. “I asked you to wait for me.”

“I wished to see his reaction without your presence.”

Offering a small sigh, Sylvara shook her head and looked to Arkk. “This is Inquisitrix Vin Lui, Chronicler Klink, and Purifier Irina. They are… leaning toward a way of thinking that more closely aligns with that of my own rather than the majority of the Abbey.”

“Leaning is a generous way of putting it,” Lui said, narrowing her eyes. “I would prefer to judge and execute the situation as usual.”

Her emphasis didn’t fill Arkk with much confidence that they would be working closely together. That said, if they were going to at least act like friends for a short while, he wasn’t willing to turn that down. Especially not with them bringing him a new purifier to observe.

His eyes turned toward the purifier, taking a look at her tattoos a little closer now that he didn’t feel quite so paranoid about watching her hands. It was a bit strange. They certainly had a glow to them, but her eyes looked… mundane. Assuming all purifiers were avatars of the Pantheon, he had been ready to assume that all of them would have interesting eyes. Tybalt, Agnete, and the Heart of Gold’s avatar all had strange eyes that betrayed their power.

Arkk couldn’t help but wonder if there was something wrong with this Irina. Agnete had been volatile before contracting with him. Tybalt clearly had more than a few issues. The less said about the Heart of Gold’s avatar, the better.

But Irina stood in a fairly casual pose, her arms clasped behind her back. She looked… serene. At ease. As if the tension that had been flying about between him and Lui just wasn’t worth considering.

He tried to match that with the gods he knew of, trying to get just a little more information without directly asking.

The Eternal Silence was the only name that jumped out to him. But the god of death, sleep, and stillness didn’t quite fit with the calm ease that Irina gave off. Unknown, the Enigma? The Laughing Prince? Surely not the latter. If Vezta were here, her more in-depth knowledge of the Pantheon might have given her a clue. As it was, Arkk turned to Sylvara.

“You were researching other gods, right?”

“Vrox focused on that,” Sylvara said with a small shake of her head. “I was uncovering techniques used to seal the powers of abominations. Avatars.”

“Wouldn’t those two topics be related?” Arkk asked. “If the powers of avatars all stem from one of the gods, then—”

“As much as I would enjoy discussing the results of my weeks of research, we have a problem.” Sylvara paused, glanced around, then leaned in and whispered, “The oracles have predicted the arrival of a great devastation within the Duchy.”

Arkk felt his spirits sink. With the absence of the Heart of Gold’s avatar and the calming of the Duchy—at least Mystakeen east of Elmshadow—he had been hoping that things would continue to remain calm. There was just the Prince to worry about. Which was very likely what she was referring to.

Shooting a glance at Edvin, who was very much trying to pretend like they weren’t surrounded by inquisitors, he sighed.

“Yes,” Sylvara said, reading his mind. “This venue isn’t exactly the best for talking of such matters. If you would come with us.”

“Why don’t we go somewhere of my choosing,” Arkk said. “Not that I don’t trust you,” he said with a nod to Sylvara. “Just not sure that going places with inquisitors is in my best interests.”

It looked like Lui was going to argue, but a look from Sylvara stopped her shot. “Such as..?” Lui asked with a frown.

“Somewhere in the academy, perhaps? It has plenty of empty spaces in the back corridors where we won’t be overheard.”

“If being overheard is the greatest of your worries in the company of four inquisitors, you are a braver man than I anticipated,” Lui said. “Or a fool.”

“I’m hardly defenseless.” Even ignoring his abilities, which could take out an avatar if he managed to surprise them, not one of them had glanced toward the shadow creeping about at their backs. “But if your oracles predicted the arrival of this catastrophe,” he whispered, “it can’t be referring to me. I’ve been here the whole time. Thus, it makes more sense to work together, doesn’t it? Especially when I might know what this coming disaster refers to and am perfectly willing to help fight it. Neither of us should have to fear from the other.”

Lui hummed before she whirled away with a flourish of her long coat. Lexa managed to step aside just as the woman passed by, still going unnoticed. The chronicler and purifier followed without a word, both seeming at relative ease with the situation. After Arkk stood to follow, Sylvara gave him a nod.

“Try not to antagonize her too much,” she whispered. “I have never been one for hard doctrine when reality disagrees with sermon and you’ve somehow weaseled Vrox over to your side, but Lui is a staunch hardliner. Associating with a heretic like you is likely grating on her more than she shows.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Arkk said, honestly. The less enemies he made, the better.

“Good.” Sylvara gave a slight nod, but paused. Letting some of the formality drop from her posture, she offered a smile. “It’s good to see you again. I heard you ran that golden avatar from the Duchy.”

Ah. That explained her attitude toward him. After Gleeful, Sylvara swore vengeance against the avatar. Anyone who could give him a metaphorical black eye was good in her books.

Unfortunately… “I wish I knew exactly what I did to him. I don’t think we killed him but… he just vanished.”

“A task to figure out together. But first, let’s deal with Lui.” With another nod, Sylvara’s back stiffened with a militaristic formality as she headed toward the door.

Arkk started to follow, only to pause and look back to Edvin.

“Y… You don’t want me to come with you, do you?” Edvin asked, sounding very much like he regretted the words the moment they came out of his mouth. “Not that I’m opposed to the company of frightening women but… I am somewhat opposed to the company of frightening women.”

Arkk rolled his eyes. “Just keep on watching Katja,” he whispered. Before Edvin could quip that Katja was a frightening woman as well, he turned and stalked away, letting his shadow trail after him.

 

 

As dawn’s first light crested the horizon, a majestic procession emerged from over the hill of the Principality of Vaales, making its way toward the ancient stone bridge that spanned the vast canyon that was Mystakeen’s border. At the head of the caravan, a group of mounted heralds clad in gleaming armor announced the approach of royalty with the melodious call of trumpets echoing against the canyon walls.

In all his time serving the Duchy, Hawkwood had never had a face-to-face meeting with the King or any of his immediate family. Duke Levi Woldair gained his position through a hereditary title, one earned by his thrice-great grandfather after he successfully led the war that reclaimed the territory of the current Duchy from the Yzanstani Empire—the predecessor to the current Evestani Sultanate. But the Duke wasn’t related to the royals. At no point in his family line had anyone married into King Lafoar’s line.

Despite that, Hawkwood was fairly certain that he knew what to expect. He had met his fair share of counts, viscounts, scions, and earls. He had sat in on meetings with generals and commanders, plenty of whom had earned their positions through nepotism rather than achievement. Prince Cedric Valorian Lafoar was said to have waged a brutal campaign of suppression in Vaales, quelling the revolt so thoroughly that he had to have more tactical and strategic skill than a nepotism position could have warranted…

Yet, if Arkk’s suspicion was correct and Prince Cedric had used a demon—had fed the revolting population to a demon—then all that image was nothing more than bluster. Hawkwood fully expected an arrogant child who had never had to want a day in his life, so detached from the reality the rest of the population lived in that he could barely be considered human.

“So which will it be?” Hawkwood murmured, standing with his best men at the entrance to the canyon bridge that linked Mystakeen and Vaales. “Brutal warlord or arrogant boy?”

White Company stood on the Duchy’s side of the bridge, their black chevron on white background banners held high. They were here today as honor guards, not as warriors. Ordinarily, the Duke’s Grand Guard who were stationed at the fort near the bridge would have been present as well. They weren’t. The fort was deserted.

Lady Katja had done an unexpectedly adequate job of enticing the Grand Guard to her banner, but she had failed here. The soldiers stationed at the border fort had heard of Prince Cedric. Not the demon summoning rumors, but just his more popularly known methods of quelling the Vaales rebellion. Even that was enough for them to fear what he might do upon his arrival.

It didn’t look as if he had come to battle.

The Prince’s caravan was more rugged than a wealthy scion might favor. It still managed opulence with the heralds and the banners embedded with woven threads of gold. But the carriage in the back—the one likely carrying Prince Cedric—was armored. A veritable fortress of metal plates and ritual enchantments. Narrow slits in its sides allowed the occupants a view without exposing themselves. Great beasts pulled the carriage. A pair of manticores. Hawkwood recognized their lion-like bodies and large, scorpion-like tails from books, though he had never seen one in person. Their eyes held an intelligence far greater than any average mule.

This was a carriage designed for a person who knew the realities of war.

Once upon a time, Hawkwood might have found it impressive. The metalwork and the rituals were clearly of fine craftsmanship. It could likely withstand some minor bombardment magic, at least for a single wave of castings.

Unfortunately for its impressiveness, he had seen the Walking Fortress.

Behind the carriage, a contingent of soldiers marched. Some on horseback, some on foot. They were not dressed in the ornate armor typical of ceremonial guards but in practical, battle-ready gear that was still light enough to travel in despite their number being too small to fight a proper battle. Their eyes scanned the surroundings with the vigilance of men who had seen combat but weren’t expecting any fight today. Not here, anyway. Hawkwood knew that look. The experienced members of White Company were the same.

The procession slowed as they approached the bridge. It was too narrow to march everyone across in the same formation that they had moved with prior. This was the weak point. If Hawkwood—or Lady Katja—had been intending subterfuge, this would be the opportune moment. Alchemical explosives placed underneath the bridge could send the entire procession down to the depths of the canyon in one fell move.

So it didn’t surprise Hawkwood when they took the bridge slowly. First with just a few men, all of whom looked to be experienced casters, sweeping prepared wands around as they advanced, likely looking for any sign of explosives. Footmen advanced next, taking the bridge in small squads, each with a mule pulling a cart of supplies.

As the groups reached the Mystakeen side of the bridge, the men quickly arranged themselves in a defensive formation. Hawkwood spent some time observing them, somewhat wary of the Prince himself, despite having been ordered here to meet the man. It was with some relief that the soldiers didn’t appear to be gunning for a fight. The formation was more formality than anything else. They squared up, matching White Company, but were at ease.

Hawkwood did not doubt that they could be ordered to violence at a single word from the Prince—White Company was the same—but if the plan was to fight, they hadn’t been told about it.

The fortified carriage finally moved up to the bridge, drawing Hawkwood’s attention back to the procession. The massive, muscular manticores that pulled it moved with surprising haste. With no footmen in the way, it cleared the vast bridge in a matter of moments, not wanting to stick around and give further opportunity for sabotage.

Now that it was closer, Hawkwood could see shadows moving in the thin slits of its walls. Its occupants shifted in place as they looked about the exterior. Hawkwood, at the fore of the White Company reception, waited, expecting the Prince to come out for a greeting—or for him to send someone in his place, but the carriage merely pulled in line with the rest of the footmen and stopped, now waiting for the rest of the procession to make its way across the bridge.

It was not a quick affair. Although they were less wary now that the carriage had gotten across, there were still at least two hundred soldiers that had to make their way over, plus the myriad horsemen, and then the squires and logisticmen along with their carts of supplies. By the time the caravan made it fully across the bridge, the sun was high in the sky.

One of the horsemen broke away from the rest of the group and dismounted, followed by his own set of honor guards. He was a man of imposing stature, almost as tall as an elf, clad in the hardened leather and metal of a leader with only a single regalia of royalty to associate the man with the Prince. Perhaps Hawkwood was projecting on the man, but he carried himself with the assurance of one who had commanded on the battlefield, his eyes sharp and assessing as they swept over Hawkwood and his men.

Hawkwood, on foot, stepped forward to meet him.

“Hawkwood, Commander of White Company?”

“I am,” Hawkwood said with a nod of his head.

“I have heard of your exploits. Both in this and the previous war with the wretched Evestani,” the man said, extending a hand. “The legends do you credit.”

“Legends are often exaggerated,” Hawkwood said, keeping his expression neutral. “Might I have your name?”

The man breathed out an amused note as he released Hawkwood’s hand. “You don’t know? Perhaps not as perceptive as I had been led to believe.”

A knot of tension tugged at the base of Hawkwood’s skull. His eyes flicked to the metal carriage.

“Ah. You thought I would be arriving in that.” His laugh only served to increase Hawkwood’s tension. “A deception. Give your enemies a target to strike and they’ll strike it. Disguise the target and they’ll reveal their hands. I couldn’t be sure of your intentions until I safely made it into the Duchy. Or, rather, Mystakeen, isn’t it? The Duke is dead and no heirs exist. My father is… most upset with the situation.”

Father clinched it. “Prince Cedric?” Hawkwood dropped into a bow. “I meant no disrespect.”

The man hummed. He offered no casual commentary or assurances that Hawkwood’s informalities were expected or warranted. The note in the hum didn’t exactly carry good connotations. If anything, the way the tone changed made Hawkwood wonder if his bow wasn’t further offending the prince.

“You have been around Mystakeen a great deal, engaging with all these factions that have arisen. That knowledge is valuable.”

Hawkwood dipped his head in acknowledgment.

“Come. Walk with me. We make for Cliff. I would have you tell me of this Lady Katja, this Arkk, and the current status of the Evestani invaders on the way.”

“Certainly, Sir,” Hawkwood said with another bow. He would tell Prince Cedric whatever he wanted to know.

And, in the meanwhile, he would keep his eyes and ears open for any sign of a demonic presence or the requisite materials necessary to summon a demon. If he could confirm that rumor… Well, his personal allegiances would be all the clearer.

“Your presence is unwanted and unnecessary.”

A stiff breeze swept across the water, carrying with it the tang of salt and the pungent odor of seaweed from the shore. It whipped the ships’ hoisted sails, causing them to flutter and snap in the wind. The sound mingled with that of the distant cries of gulls circling above.

The warships, moored in the span of sea that divided the bulk of Evestani’s lands from the jagged cliffs of Mystakeen, gently rocked back and forth with the wind and waves. Large cranes mounted to the sides of the ships lowered smaller boats to ferry soldiers and supplies to land. Each boat brought over a force of strength and support.

Unneeded strength and support.

Not one of the ships bore the emblem of the Golden Sun, nor did they display striped banners of the Duchy of Mystakeen or the greater Kingdom of Chernlock. The breeze kicked up into a harsh wind, unfurling the great black flag bearing nine white swords of the Eternal Empire.

A young boy with glowing gold tattoos around his skull stared out in distaste from the cliffside. The one possessing his body had long thought he had seen the last of that flag. To have it here now flooded his body with ill feelings and simmering anger. His teeth clenched tight enough to hurt his jaw, not that the one possessing his body noticed or cared.

“You squandered your opportunity.”

The boy’s head wrenched to the side as his teeth clenched harder. Worse still was the woman at his side, watching from the cliff.

She stood tall. Graceful. She was like the stories of elves except for the lack of her pointed ears. A golden ring, with nine spikes jutting off it, hovered just behind her head. A matching golden glove covered only her right hand. With a black, flowing dress and a white cape, all adorned with fine gold, the boy thought she was as beautiful yet terrifying. It was her eyes. Her whole face. Framed with blonde hair, her luminous white eyes stared down without a single emotion. She was as impassive as a statue. Her lips maintained a perfect mask of neutrality.

Normal people didn’t act like that, the boy knew, not when he was like this. Those who weren’t a part of the Golden Order were often awed, disturbed, or frightened, and rightfully so, when in the presence of a god. Even the boy could hardly believe that he was in the honored position of serving as a vessel. It was what he had been born to do. He had been raised for this, granted the sacred markings, and now he got to watch as his god acted through his hands.

Except his god wasn’t happy. And this woman wasn’t impressed. It looked more like she wanted to crush him under the spiked heel of her boot.

“Why appear before me in this form?”

The two were talking. The boy didn’t understand the words. He and all those like him were taught a special language, only known by them and their handlers. But their god didn’t speak in that language, nor did anyone else.

“You take me for a fool? You think I don’t know what you plan? The moment this truce ends, I’ll be fighting you off my lands.”

“Your lands?” The woman turned, leaning down. She touched her finger to the boy’s chin. “Immortality, power, prestige. Anything you want, so long as you continue to serve the Heart of Gold. These are not your lands. These are Their lands.”

“Of course. Everything that is mine is Hers.” The boy smiled. A grin spread across his face that wasn’t his own. “And if I say the Heart of Gold wants it all?”

The woman’s face remained inexpressive and utterly still. She leaned back upright, looking down on the boy. “Then I invite you to the Almighty’s shores once again to try to take them.”

Frustration. Anger. Annoyance. Emotions seeped through. The boy didn’t know what they were speaking about, only that his god wasn’t happy with it. The boy didn’t understand. Why not smite the woman here and now? Such insults—for what other meaning could those words hold—were undeserving for the ears of a god.

“Regardless, attacking you now would violate our truce. I will depart these lands peacefully once we have finished our work. Unless you give me cause to act otherwise.”

The boy scoffed as both turned their gazes back to the sea.

The warships continued to unload. There wasn’t a large port here, so everything had to be carried on the smaller boats.

“Where is our contemporary?” the woman asked as they watched a cleric in stylish robes that almost matched the woman’s dress direct laborers to their tasks.

“Huh? You think the… the… Lacking Light would actually show up?”

“The truce—”

“Don’t you get it?” The boy tapped the side of his head. “You are the only one who cares about that truce. It is, at most, a polite fiction between us. One which can be nullified the moment it becomes convenient.”

The woman stared for a long moment before calmly turning away. “I suppose it is no great loss. With the… diminishment of the Holy Light, I question her ability to contribute meaningfully.”

“It is a shame she didn’t show her face. She wouldn’t be able to resist stabbing us in the back. But I’d be a step ahead…”

“Save your energy for our true opponent. This should be the final servant. The final link to that abysmal hell. We sever it and this world will finally be saved.”

The boy looked up to the woman, one eyebrow popping up. “You don’t think the Lock and Key or the presence of the Cloak of Shadows’ regalia implies that we’re too late?”

“It may take work, but so long as we prevent the issue from spreading, we will be victorious in the end. The Solution can be mended once more.”

Frustration welled within the boy once more as he stared at the side of the woman’s head. Another gust of wind picked up, fluttering her cape. One lock of hair ended low on her face, hanging over her white eyes. Only then did a flash of irritation—her first emotion—cross her face. She raised her hand slowly and deliberately.

With a snap of her fingers, the air stilled. The flags atop the boats drooped as if there were no air at all. Not only was the wind silent, but the woman’s blonde hair was back, swept over the top of her head where it draped down her back. The boy hadn’t seen her move to fix the stray lock.

The boy felt his eyes roll.

“I’ll return in a few days’ time,” his mouth said, the words alien and unfamiliar in his mouth. “I fear my subjects have grown a minor streak of independence in my absence. They must be reminded of their duties.”

The woman, dismissive, waved her hand as she lowered it back to her hip. “I will alert you once the remainder of my forces arrive.”

The boy sagged in place, feeling the divine presence leave his body. He fell to his hands and knees, trying to remind his body how to breathe on its own. He panted, clenched his fists, and stared up with a glare as he sucked air down his lungs.

The woman still stood at the cliff’s edge, watching over the sea. She didn’t look at him. She didn’t see him.

A righteous rage filled every bone in his body as he got to his shaking feet. There were no handlers around. No other vessels. Just the woman who dared to disrespect his god.

He raised his hands before he could stop himself. His god hadn’t acted against the woman. Who was he to try anything? A nobody. Which made him the perfect vessel to act. He could suffer any punishment, even death, and none would care.

The boy reached forward, shoving.

A snapping of fingers echoed in his ears.

He found himself over the edge of the cliff, tumbling and falling through the air. He spun over and over again, catching a glimpse of the woman at the edge of the cliff above. She stood, impassive and imposing, staring out at the sea without a single regard for him as he tumbled to the jagged rocks below.