“It was bad enough to keep locked up for more than five thousand years,” she reminded me. “You’re right, Korbal must not be allowed to gain access to them. But you are also right that the Aronin’s compulsion is making you obsess about it.”
“As soon as I’m done securing the Magelaw, I’ll find her,” I pledged. “I hope that will be quickly enough.”
Lilastien smirked. “The Aronin’s line was chosen for this duty because of their ability to endure any challenge to their charge, overcome any threat to that with which they were entrusted. I do not fear that Ameras will betray us.”
“It’s not her character I question, it’s Korbal’s,” I informed her. “He’s sending an army to take my head and my Magolith,” I reasoned. “If he wants the arsenal, he will spare no effort to find it.”
“We’ll find her first,” Lilastien agreed. “But I’m wary of opening the arsenal. There is a chance that she will refuse, despite the great need,” she informed me, for the first time.
“Why would she do that?” I asked, aghast.
“Because the entire point of appointing an Aronin for something is to give over its use to the conscience of the Aronin. To take such things as molopor beyond the influence of such ephemeral things as political expediency,” she suggested. “They have no superiors. They have no higher authority. The Aronin, alone, may decide what to do with their charge.”
“Then we shall have to convince her,” I countered. “That shouldn’t be that hard. Especially considering what’s at stake.” Should we not be able to defeat Korbal, then the Vundel could very well decide to just wipe out both our races from the dry lands of Callidore. There wasn’t a lot of room for moral equivocation, I thought. But Lilastien thought otherwise.
“Minalan, the Aronin don’t serve the Alka Alon, by design. Their loyalty is always to the greater life force. If Ameras thinks that opening the arsenal will save the Alka Alon, but doom the rest of the life force, she may well refuse. The Aronin serve a higher power than mere civilization.”
“That’s remarkably inconvenient,” I grumbled.
“You are not the first to think so,” she chuckled, at some ancient memory. “The institution of the Aronin has oft caused conflict with the ruling powers of the Alka Alon. That’s the point. Some things are just too dangerous to be entrusted to mere politics. They require a higher dedication. But once an Aronin has been appointed, there is very little room for discussion. By design.”
“Her own father wanted her to help,” I reasoned.
“That would not necessarily change her mind,” Lilastien countered. “Each Aronin is the keeper of their own conscience. Their lines are chosen for their dedication and wisdom, and the ability to resist temptation. It’s implicit in the office.”
“The point is moot, until we find her,” I sighed. “And that assumes we survive this battle.”
“I have no doubt of that,” she dismissed. “But the issue of Ameras is pressing. It must be handled soon. Within the next decade,” she insisted.
“It’s on my agenda,” I assured her. “I’ll sneak away as soon as I’m not being attacked by dark lords. Promise.”
“You must keep such a journey secret,” she agreed, either not realizing that I was being sarcastic, or not caring. “Not just from Korbal’s spies, but even your own people. If the Vundel suspected the arsenal even exists, it could prove disastrous.”
“The Vundel don’t know it exists?” I asked, surprised. What else didn’t I know?
“When they came to us after the wars and put us on probation, it was with the understanding that the weapons would be destroyed,” she said, shaking her head. “Along with the knowledge to craft them. The Council interpreted the directive in their own way . . . because they were unwilling to lay aside their most potent powers, should they need them.”
“Against whom?” I asked, my breathing suddenly shallow, my palms clammy.
“There are many powers on Callidore, Minalan,” she said, hoarsely. “The Vundel. The Met Sakinsa’s Grandfather Forest. The Formless, in their ancient prisons. The Powers of the Deeps, and powers of the Depths and powers of the Dry. There are the Lost Races, those invited to Callidore but who lost the right or lacked the ability to flourish, here. The other realms of Alon, on distant shores. Nameless horrors from Callidore’s storied past, any of which could prove a danger to the Alon. And, of course, our neighbors the magnificently barbaric Humani.”
“We’re actually quite likeable,” I pointed out, tepidly, while my mind raced. “So the Vundel told you to destroy the weapons, and instead you crammed them in a secret arsenal under the care of a nameless guardian,” I summarized.
“It’s what you would consider a state secret, if the Council would acknowledge such things in a straightforward manner. The truth is, as brutal as the Alkan Wars were for this realm, and as devastated as it left the lands, the Council learned one important thing about the world, when the Vundel came with their demands: that we had the means to annoy, even wound them, if we needed it. Before, we saw them as invincible and aloof.
“So we promised to get rid of our weapons and behave, and never do that sort of thing again,” she shrugged. “Internally, there was a purge: the radical factions and the troublemakers were punished, the old . . . call them High Kings were exiled, and control was turned over to the ineffectual Council under a nominal Prince. But the Alka Alon also undertook a careful study of the Vundel, with renewed interest. For we knew we could possibly hurt them. We sent our best and brightest minds to learn as much as we could about them. They sent . . . they sent Alka like me,” she admitted, guiltily.
“So you studied the Vundel to learn how better to hurt them? That doesn’t seem so . . .”
“Noble? It’s not,” she agreed. “It’s subtle and insidious. When I returned from a century of study, I was outraged about the questions I was being asked. I felt used,” she hissed. “The Council was looking for leverage, weakness, not an academic understanding of the Vundel as a race. That’s when I started being called ‘Elre.’ It was in jest, at first,” she recalled. “If your folk hadn’t dropped out of the sky a few decades later and distracted me, I was planning on making a stink about it.”
“Instead, they bribed you by sending you to study us,” I realized. “Everything about us. Every point of leverage and every sign of weakness.”
“I thought it was different with your people, I really did,” she confessed. “I was rationalizing, of course – I suspected what the Council wanted from such a study. I still did it. You were just too alluring. Too new, in this ancient world. I tried to keep my reports innocuous, but your folk made it depressingly easy to identify your weaknesses.”
“Especially if we trusted you,” I said, dryly.
“But you didn’t,” she countered, her eyes flashing. “At least, not all of you. Indeed, there was an element in your governments that was just as suspicious of the Alon as we were of the Humani.
“But the bitter truth of the matter was this: the Council was searching for a means of using you against the Vundel, if need be. Your arrival was timely – so soon after the wars and the upheaval, and the terrible probation. It seemed fated that you would provide some means to challenge the Vundel and the other powers of Callidore. Some of my cohort sent to study you did so with that purpose, just as some of your folk infiltrated our councils in a similar manner, to similar purpose.”
“You did say that we were more alike than different,” I reminded her. “Apart from the near-immortality.”
“Depressingly so,” she sighed, tiredly. “Both our races were prepared to betray the other from the outset. Both were also ready and willing to attack the Vundel and even the Met Sakinsa, if necessary. And some elements among both races were in favor of finding a reason.”
“So we need to find the secret arsenal that’s not supposed to exist, and then convince its guardian to let us use the weapons against the unfortunate result of Alka Alon sorcery, all without letting the Vundel – wh
o are breathing down my bloody neck for snowstone – know what we’re doing. Oh, and I need to figure out how to make more snowstone. Ishi’s tits, Lilastien, this isn’t going to be easy.”
“Says the man who plotted and executed a surprise attack on Olum Seheri,” she pointed out. “Says the man who has restored his . . . who has almost restored his wife, who was beyond the help of the very gods. Says the man who’s overseeing a complex theoretical thaumaturgical experiment while simultaneously fighting a war. Pardon me if I think a little subtlety is within your power.”
“Subtlety, I can manage,” I admitted. “It’s just damned inconvenient, with everything else going on. The war. My exile. The kids – two sets of them, now. And my wife wants to have another baby. My—”
“What?” Lilastien said, sharply, her eyes springing wide open. “Alya wants to . . .”
“She’s still upset over the one we lost,” I confided. “She wants to try again.”
The ancient sorceress stared at me, searchingly. “Minalan, do you realize how dangerous that could be for her?” she demanded. “She’s still highly fragile, no matter how functional she appears. I gave her a thorough check-up, when I arrived, and she’s doing well . . . but she’s far from well, yet. A pregnancy could kill her. Or worse.”
“Worse?” I scoffed. “Lilastien, she’s had babies before. She’s—”
“Do you have any idea what happens to a female body during gestation?” she countered, almost accusingly. “It’s complex enough in an Alkan female, but a human? It’s a constantly changing hell-ride of hormones and metabolic changes that . . . that . . . oh, I’d have to teach you half of medical school for you to even begin to understand!” she spat, indignantly.
“I think I understand more than you think I do,” I challenged. “We’ve been studying the thaumaturgical effects of pregnancy, as we research the snowstone spell. Alya’s pregnancy, in fact. We’ve made some intriguing discoveries. We’ve even consulted some of the appropriate gods.” I quickly explained the theory of the Natal Flare and discovered that Lilastien was already aware of it.
“Yes, yes, we noted a kind of magical spike at birth when your people first came here,” she admitted. “It was the first glimmer we had that the humani weren’t entirely insensitive to magic. The only glimmer, for the first few generations.”
“And you didn’t think that was noteworthy?” I asked.
“We considered it a biological fluke, at the time, the revelation of your potential, but only your potential. It was worthy of study, but there were a lot more interesting things to study about you. Before we could give it the attention it deserved, your third native generation started manifesting rajira in more dramatic ways, at puberty. That’s where the focus of our studies lay, for the first few years. But that’s interesting,” she conceded. “I figured that the Natal Flare probably played a role in the spell you described, but I didn’t realize that it extended into the range of Divine magic. Goodness, at the time we weren’t even aware such a thing as Divine magic existed.”
“Any insights, in retrospect?” I asked, hesitantly. Lilastien’s specialty was biology, both the practical and arcane aspects of it. I doubted she would have much to add to the thaumaturgical theory we were slowly evolving. But it couldn’t hurt to ask, especially if she was familiar with the Natal Flare.
“You know,” she said, after a few moments of sipping wine and staring into space, “We probably observed around thirty human births, when the issue was brought to our attention. Something about the moment of birth triggering acute failures of the medical equipment.”
“It melted forceps?” I asked, confused. “That must have frustrated the midwives.”
“Oh, the tools the physicians your ancestors used were far more sophisticated than what is used, now,” she assured me. “Tools that you cannot imagine, all without magic. Tools sensitive enough to sudden bursts of energy to fail when exposed to an unexpected wave of electromagnetic force. At the precise moment of birth. It only happened in Perwyn, and not in the orbital stations, so it was theorized to be part of the ‘localized field distortion effect’ – the Magosphere –”
“Wait, what were the ‘orbital stations’?” I asked, intrigued at the term. I’d seen it used a few times in the ancient Perwynese epics, but I’d always assumed from context that they referred to some mythical islands beyond the Shallow Sea.
“When the New Horizon came to Callidore, as a part of the colonization effort they built several orbital stations – think of them as small cities in the sky,” she suggested. “Beyond the atmosphere, beyond Callidore’s gravity and the thickest part of the Magosphere.”
“Cities in the sky?” I asked, amused. That made more sense, I suppose, than mythical islands.
“Yes, there were several,” she recalled. “I visited a few, in the early days. And the New Horizon, itself. They were like great bubbles of glass and metal, or spinning castles of steel. Some were used to experiment with Callidoran flora and fauna, while others were used to cultivate various Humani flora and fauna for use in the terraforming process. Others were great manufactories that provided your ancestors with their tekka. Most of them were shut down when the New Horizon was sent away,” she added, regretfully. “Amazing places, the orbital stations. A terrible tragedy that they were lost.”
“I’ll add it to the list of amazing things we tragically screwed up,” I grunted. “Does our friend from the past know of these castles in the sky?” I asked, still intrigued by the idea. The intelligence known as Forseti, a legacy of our ancestors, had been much on my mind, recently. Perhaps it was nearly time to pay it another call.
“Oh, I have no doubt,” she assured. “They were all run by such entities. I’m sure it contains detailed records. Why, have you . . . have you been chatting?” she asked, her tone tinged with anxiety.
“Only in passing. I’ve been busy. But Ruderal helped me set it up, and I introduced Forseti to Gareth and Taren, too. He’s promised to probe the depths of the creature’s knowledge this winter. Assuming we survive this battle.”
“Would you mind if I spent a few more hours with it in a day or so?” she asked. “I’ve got some questions it would be helpful to run past a high-capacity AI.”
“Of course,” I promised. “And since I’ll be gone fighting for my life for a few days against a gurvani horde and a pissed-off Nemovort, I won’t be using it, after I take counsel with it, tonight..”
“No, you won’t,” she nodded, absently. “Good. That would be very helpful. Take your time,” she suggested. “I think I might be able to coax answers to both of our problems from it, if I ask it the right way.”
“You think it can tell me how to defeat a trio of Nemovorti?”
“No, no, but you can handle that,” she dismissed. “Really, Min, you do that sort of thing all the time.”
Intermission IV – Forseti
One of the lovely things about the northeastern part of the Wilderlands that I was now in charge of was the geology. Between the foothills of the Kulines and the Vanador Escarpment, the rocky hills and ridges were riddled with caverns and caves. That was a mixed blessing. While that made it easy for gurvani to slip in, find a place to hide and get into mischief, it also provided some of the survivors of the invasion safe refuge against them. It also gave us plenty of underground places for us to do all sorts of things.
The Iron Folk were appropriating a limestone cavern along the northern ridge of the vale near to Yltedene, for instance. The roomy series of caverns not only provided limestone for their works, it would also become their most secure complex of workshops and forges. That’s where the Dradrien built the great weapons that armed our folk.
The caves beneath the overhang, over which the inner fortress was built, were turned into storerooms and cisterns, as well as passages to other parts of the Anvil. Smaller caves around the southern side of the Anvil were transformed into small mansions for some enterprising clans of Wood Dwarves. While their delvings weren’t as elegant
as the Karshak’s, the strip of underground residences that became known as Kovadlina Way were magnificent inside, their entrances sheltered by cunning little wooden huts.
Pentandra’s original croft, on the northeastern side of the great mound, had been expanded; The foundations of the grand spire Carmella planned for Penny was being laid. A passageway led deeper into the mountain and expanded into a series of chambers for the eventual use of the Baroness of Vanador. Nearby, the initial excavations for the great keep that would one day lie on the prow of the mountain sent shafts down to a few deep pockets that would one day serve the castle as its most secure quarters.
I was fortunate enough to have two small caves on my new country estate, and I didn’t hesitate to make use of both. The larger was only a few hundred feet from Spellmonger’s Hall, a slanted gap between two massive boulders, long covered with layers of dirt and topsoil. It took a little magic to open the entrance enough to make it easy to enter, but once I did the interior proved to be as large as a barn, though not as elegantly shaped. At some point some freeholder had used it as storehouse, and more recently a bear had nested inside, but it was clear of both smoked hams and angry ursines by the time I took possession.
The second cave was a little farther away, on the eastern side of the hill. I wouldn’t have known it was there, if I hadn’t spotted it during my magical examination of the estate. The entrance was covered by a layer of soil, leaving a hole no larger than a badger’s hole in the dirt, but once I dug it out with an elemental it was a crevice in the hill nearly seven feet tall. It led to a long winding passage that narrowed in two places within twenty feet of the entrance, but was still passable if you were determined.
Nearly fifty feet in, the passageway sloped upward and then opened up into a lopsided chamber. One lobe went up and south, about as large as a farm wagon. The other went north and dropped a few feet, but stretched back into the hill about thirty feet, though the roof declined sharply the last ten. The second chamber had the added benefit of a natural chimney that opened up above the entrance and allowed air, a little rain, and an occasional spot of light into the cave, if the sun was in the right position. The western end also had a small pool, fed by a spring, that formed a bit of a basin.
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