"-so we came to find you instead." Shamus finished Kireno's sentence for him.
"What's it like in the Citadel?" asked Eladamri.
"Chaos," Kireno replied. "They're bringing troops in from the city garrison, I heard them say. The whole place will be overrun with soldiers."
"Sivi must have drawn their attention. Very well, we need to get out of sight for a while and wait for things to calm a bit before we try to get out," the elf said.
"Where can we go?" said Shamus.
"Greven's bound to return here to finish with me," said Eladamri. "I can't decide whether to ambush him here or clear out to fight another day."
"Begging your pardon, O Eladamri, but you're in no shape to fight," Kireno said. "Let's find a quiet corner to hide in, as you said."
Takara interjected. "The map room," she said. "It's the next building over, before you get to the mogg warrens. It's for the evincar's use only, so no one goes there much."
"You know your way around this maze?"
She looped dirty copper hair behind her ears. "My father was Volrath's mentor and later his servant. I know something about the Stronghold." She handed the empty water bottle to Eladamri.
"The map room it is," he said.
He and Takara had to be helped to stand. They braced each other.
Takara smiled wryly. "You never know what you'll find behind a closed door, do you?"
*****
When the alarm went off, Belbe was in the control room of the flowstone factory making the third of her subversive adjustments to the output meter. As she suspected, the monitoring units built into the factory machinery had detected the reduced output by comparing current production figures to those of the past. All through the day the production of flowstone steadily increased. By the time she arrived late that night, the works were churning out flowstone at 90 percent of capacity. The speed at which the factory corrected itself troubled her. It meant she would have to be more vigilant in her sabotage if her goal of preventing the conjunction with Dominaria was to be met.
When the alarm sounded, she covered all traces of her tampering and started back to the palace to find out what was going on. She found the corridors clogged with guards. Though the palace garrison numbered over two thousand men, she found hundreds of troops of the regular army mustering on the factory concourse. She accosted a captain of the Tenth Company and asked him what he knew about the situation.
"Forgive me, Excellency, I don't know much more than you do," the officer said. "I heard something about Predator-a riot between the moggs and the workers, maybe. I don't know."
"Why would they need so many troops to quell a brawl?"
"There's thousands of moggs in the warrens, Excellency. If they get out of hand, it would take the entire army to put them down."
"Who's commanding this operation?"
The captain frowned and pointed. Belbe followed his gesture and saw a sergeant standing on a flowbot armature, shouting orders. If the Corps of Sergeants was involved, it meant Crovax was in charge.
Belbe was seized by a sense of foreboding. She smelled a plot. If Crovax had engineered an emergency in order to flood the Citadel with army troops, it gave him an unbeatable advantage in the struggle for power. True, she had offered him the evincar's crown, but that was just a ploy to save Ertai's life. She'd still held out hope that with Greven's help she could suppress Crovax and lead Rath in an entirely new direction. Now things looked very bad, if not hopeless.
Once in the palace, she learned there had been a disturbance at the upper airship dock. She went there immediately and found the pinnacle heavily occupied. The docking platform was littered with slain guards, and the air was spiced with the smell of burnt gunpowder. Predator floated evenly on its tether, but there was obvious damage to the deckhouse and main bridge.
She easily picked out Greven and Crovax among the mass of troops. Greven bowed when he saw her. Crovax did not.
She approached Greven. "What's the matter?"
"Things are unclear at the moment, Excellency," he replied. "We're questioning the workers and moggs who were on board when this happened, but we're not getting a coherent story from any of them. The guards who responded to the first call for help are all dead, killed by that." He indicated the twelve-foot-long harpoon head, now imbedded in the far wall of the platform. "Someone fired the deck gun without closing the breech. The gun's mangled, and the harpoon cut down more than twenty men at once."
"What do the workers say?" asked Belbe.
"They say the moggs went berserk and attacked them."
"And what do the moggs say?"
"Moggs are moggs," Greven said. "I've learned not to put much stock in what they say."
"Tell her," Crovax said. He seemed half-angry, halfexcited. "Tell her what they said."
"It's not proven," Greven said evenly.
Even this mild contradiction brought swift retaliation from
Crovax. Greven's face contorted as his spinal rod sizzled into action.
"Enough," Belbe said. "You tell me, Crovax."
Crovax made his hulking victim suffer for a few seconds, then released him. "The moggs claim they were attacked by soldiers-men of the army."
"Why would our own soldiers attack Predator?"
Crovax leaned closer, and in a mocking whisper said, "When is a rabbit not a rabbit?"
"What?"
"When it's a fox."
Sergeant Nasser, on the foredeck of the airship, hailed his master. Crovax excused himself politely and went to see what Nasser had to tell him.
Belbe turned to Greven. The warlord still had his eyes tightly shut.
"Greven," she said. "Are you all right?"
"He's learned to inflict lingering pain," Greven said through clenched teeth. "He's done this to me several times in the past few days. He punishes me, or amuses himself with my suffering. I think it's over, but he leaves me a surprise. Lately it's been acute pain when light hits my eyes."
Belbe lowered her voice. "I'm sorry to hear that. Would you walk with me a moment? I have a proposal I want you to hear."
"As you command, Excellency. First-" Greven's eyes sprang open. They were shot with blood, and when the normal light of the Stronghold hit them, he grimaced and uttered a short cry of agony.
"Does it hurt so much?"
"I'm getting used to it," Greven grunted. "However, if I don't gratify Lord Crovax's sense of humor by screaming, he will redouble the effect next time."
Belbe shuddered. "Come. I have something important and secret to tell you."
She led him into the shadow of the flowstone carapace, dismissing the guards who were already there. When they were alone, Belbe began.
"The time has come for plain speaking. Crovax has been pressuring me to name him evincar. After many threats and some violence, I've agreed to do so tomorrow afternoon in the convocation hall."
"I've wondered why you've delayed this long," said Greven. She was taken aback. "At first, I wanted him to prove himself worthy. Later I became afraid of what he would do when total power was his. I saw what he did to the hostages. I was there. It troubled him no more than you or I swatting a fly. I discovered he gains power when life is extinguished-he absorbs the life-force of dying beings into himself. Don't you see? This guarantees people will continue to die!" "We will all die sometime, Excellency." Belbe's hands closed into fists. "What's the matter with you? Of all people, I expected you to understand. He torments you. He mocks you. It will only get worse, can't you see that? Have you no ambition for yourself, Greven? If we could forge an alliance against Crovax, we could change things on Rath." "Crovax is too powerful. He controls the flowstone." "Ertai has influence over the stone, too. Not as great as Crovax's but sufficient to even the odds if you and I attack him together!"
Greven made a pretense of looking around. "Where is Ertai?" "I don't know. Crovax's men are holding him prisoner." "Then he's a dead man."
"No!" she said forcefully. "Give me your word-promise you'll
join with us against Crovax, and I'll find Ertai this night and free him!"
"I cannot." Belbe was visibly deflated by Greven's flat rejection. "There is more at stake here than you know, Excellency. I cannot act as you ask. My loyalties are… committed."
"I don't believe it," she said. "I know you hate him. Can it be you're afraid of him as well?"
She thought this taunt, which always enraged Greven in the past, would arouse him again, but the hulking warlord turned away without a word.
"I'm not free to act, Excellency," Greven said. "I never have been. Though I command armies and the flag on Predator's bridge is mine, I do not have command of myself. I'm sorry."
Speechless, Belbe watched him return to the hubbub surrounding the damaged airship. On the way, he was intercepted by an officer of the palace guard in a crimson mantle. Though Greven outranked anyone else in the guards or regular army, she distinctly saw him salute this minor officer.
Crovax really has him rattled, she decided. Her options were shrinking hour by hour. Ertai captive, Greven immobilized, even the rebel leader Eladamri was no longer a threat. Crovax stood alone on the field, waiting for Belbe to place a crown upon his head.
She must find Ertai. Once she knew he was safe, she would go to her last resource. If he didn't help her, then every living being on Rath was doomed.
*****
Kireno and Shamus, still attired like soldiers of the Fourth Company, boldly walked out on the open causeway connecting the prison to the map tower. Two sentries were posted on the bridge between the buildings, one on each side, facing each other. Kireno and Shamus approached in measured step.
"Halt!" the Vec rebel shouted, hoping to sound military.
"What's this?" asked the sentry on the right, nearest Kireno.
"We're your relief."
The rebels waited tensely. The guards relaxed their stance.
"About bloody time," one guard groused. "We should've been relieved two hours ago!"
"There's trouble in the Citadel," Shamus said. "That's why they sent for the Fourth Company."
"Oh yeah? You guys talk a lot, but what makes you so great?"
"We captured Eladamri," Kireno said.
The sentries couldn't top that, and they didn't try. They shouldered their polearms and prepared to march back to the Citadel.
Then one of the guards stopped. "Hey, how do you plan to stand guard without any weapons?"
Shamus and Kireno exchanged quick glances. "Uh, they wouldn't let us through the palace armed," said the Dal rebel.
"What? In a general alarm?"
Kireno dodged the sweep of a poleax and charged in before the guard could recover. He hit the man high, carrying him along until the reached the edge of the bridge. The Vec gave an extra shove, and the guard toppled backward over the rail. His scream faded as he fell, and it was soon drowned out by the constant background rumble of the factory energy beam.
Shamus had more trouble with his man. He avoided the guard's spearhead, but the back swipe of the shaft caught him behind the knees, and down he went. That would have been the end of him if Kireno hadn't jumped on the guard's back, knocking the Rathi soldier's helmet off in the process. They fell in a tangle on top of Shamus and rolled over and over in a flurry of fists and kicking feet.
Eladamri and Takara came out of hiding at the prison tower gate. By the time they reached the scuffle, the unfortunate guard was hanging by his hands over the side of the bridge. Shamus was out cold, and Kireno was bleeding from a busted lip. "Help! Help me!" yelled the guard.
Eladamri and Takara stood over him. The Rathi soldier stopped shouting.
"Please help me," he said.
The elf held out his hands. "Thanks to Greven il-Vec, there's not much I can do," he said. "Lady, please help!"
Takara looked around. She spotted the guard's poleax. In her weakened condition, she couldn't fully pick it up, so she dragged it by the butt end to the edge of the causeway.
"That's it," said the guard. "Hand me the shaft, and I'll climb up."
Takara said nothing, but held the poleax shaft over the guard's head. He regarded her quizzically until she let go. The stout shaft connected solidly with the soldier's bare head, and he disappeared with a screech. The poleax tipped up and followed him into oblivion.
"A waste of a good arm," Kireno said. He knelt by Shamus and patted his face roughly to revive him.
Eladamri leaned on the rail, looking intently at Takara. "That was cold."
"I learned from an early age, if someone gets in your way, put them aside," said Takara.
They cleaned up the bridge of all traces of trouble and hurried to the map tower. The door was locked, but Takara claimed she knew how to circumvent the mechanism. She fearlessly thrust her hand into the flowbot jaws and manipulated the lock inside. Eladamri and the rebels waited to see if the jaws would bite off her slender arm.
"My father taught me this," she said. "Good for sneaking in where you're not allowed… I hope Volrath hasn't changed the locks since he threw me in prison."
With a loud clank, the doors spread apart. Takara carefully withdrew her arm from the lock.
"After you," said Eladamri.
The interior of the map tower was suffused with wavering green light, which fostered the odd sensation of being underwater. It came from the tower cone, glazed entirely with heavy, irregular panes of jade-green glass. The upper half of the map tower was taken up by some kind of complex machinery, all gears and cams and glowing powerstones. Takara led Eladamri and the rebels into an amphitheater, which filled the bottom quarter of the structure. This single room was over three hundred feet wide and featured two concentric seating platforms, focused on a central column of intricate design. A set of wide steps descended to this column, and overhead, a segmented gantry curled above the central pillar like the tail of a huge metallic scorpion. As they entered the vast, empty chamber, their footsteps rang hollowly off the green glass walls.
"Welcome to the Map Room," Takara said. Her voice was still weak from privation, yet the acoustics of the map room enabled her voice to be heard easily.
"I don't see any maps," said Shamus, still groggy from his fight on the bridge.
"I'll show you."
She descended a staircase to the inner ring of seats. At the foot of the steps was a panel, covered with strange glyphs and symbols. Takara stood before this arcane altar, hands poised. Then, as if playing a musical instrument, her fingers flew over the controls, touching the symbols in a complex sequence.
With a deep hum, the enormous machine awoke. The broad descending column, covered with brazen cog wheels and bundles of tubing, retracted ponderously into the ceiling. It left behind a thick stump, serrated with large angular flaps. These flaps folded outward and stopped. When the column was about thirty feet up, it locked in place.
"Now what?" Eladamri asked in a hushed voice. "Here." She stroked a single glyph.
The air between the column and the serrated base shimmered. A swirl of gray and green fog formed, whirling on both axes. It darkened, became opaque, and assumed the shape of an oval spinning globe. More definition developed, and the rapid rotation slowed. In seconds, the globe settled into a mottled gray egg, turning slowly on its vertical axis. "Rath," Takara said.
Eladamri looked on, fascinated. "This is Rath?" Takara nodded. "For years I've heard philosophers debate priests about the shape of the world. Most of the holy ones taught the world is flat, surrounded by a void, like a stone lying in a stream. Some philosophers claimed it was round, like an egg." "Which did you believe?"
"I always considered it unimportant. Since no one can see the whole world at once, what difference does it make what shape it is?"
"It's with knowledge like this that the evincar can locate and strike his enemies."
"Show me the Skyshroud Forest," he said. Takara toyed with the controls, and the gray globe was instantly replaced by a flattened half-sphere. Centered in the portion facing Eladamri was a broad, irregular pat
ch of dark green.
"This is Skyshroud as seen from a height of 100,000 feet," she said. Punching a button made the green patch treble in size. "From 20,000 feet." Takara touched the panel once more, and the image swelled to cover the entire hemisphere.
"From 10,000 feet," she said. "This is how it looks from Predator."
Eladamri looked for the Eye of Korai, his village, and other features he knew. None were discernible. There was texture to the image, made up of taller and shorter trees, but the canopy was as featureless as the sea.
"Now I know why Volrath and Greven have had such trouble catching us," the elf said. "Even with this great artifact, the Skyshroud is still our shield and sanctuary."
Intrigued by the maps, Kireno and Shamus came down and joined them. For several minutes, the rebels were lost in the bird's eye view of Rath.
"Here's something none of you have ever seen." Takara played the panel expertly, and the hemispherical view of Rath was replaced by a brilliantly colored globe.
Compared to Rath, which was made up of shades of gray, green, and brown, this world was a blinding array of colors- bright blue oceans, yellow and red deserts, smoky purple mountains. Feathery clouds filled the atmosphere, softening the contrasts between the sharper colors. The whole thing was like a jewel, a bauble fit for an empress's brow.
Something about the colorful world moved Eladamri deeply. "What is that, Takara?"
"Dominaria."
He knew the name. Weatherlight had come from there, with its motley crew of heroes-and so had Crovax. Dominaria. The name tripped from his tongue as pleasingly as the rainbow sphere delighted his eye.
"Tell me about Dominaria," he said.
"It's the original home of our kind, yours and mine," Takara replied. "The ancestors of every soul on Rath came from there. Some ancient sages say even the overlords came from there, long ago. There's a prophecy that says the demon world will one day tear apart the clouds and rain destruction on the Bright World. I think the seers knew what we're only beginning to realize-the purpose of Rath is to destroy Dominaria."
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