Coda, Chapter Eleven: Departures

"That was weird," Rebvaz said, portaling into the Allegiance Hall.

"What was?" Pfeil asked.

"Oh, a bunch of us went off to fight Black Ferah. And the place was deserted."

"Ferah wasn't there?"

"Oh, yeah, she was there --- well, she's never there, you know; she generates those five or six Shadows. They were there. But nothing else was. No Dark Throne Sclavi, no Spawn, no Dark Vermin, no nothing. There was nothing to fight except Ferah's own Shadows --- and you know what? I don't think she noticed. She said the same things she always did, like, 'Dark Shadows, attack!' But they didn't, because there weren't any. And I don't think she noticed."

"Well, somebody's taken out all the Undead in Artefon," Pfeil said, "and in Vothardun. And I don't know who they are, and the Raven doesn't know who they are. I bet Asheron's doing it himself. He and Dule together, maybe. Only if Dule were in on it, don't you think he'd want to do in Ferah more than anybody else, after what she did to him?"

"I guess he doesn't know where she is either. The real Ferah, I mean. Even Master Leken doesn't know. 'Somewhere far from Dereth,' is all he can say. I wonder if we'll ever find out."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Good morning, Blood-Mother," Nalicana said. "Have the Servitors provided you with everything you need?"

"Everything but a means of escape," Helethiska said. "But please don't trouble yourself about it; I can find one for myself presently."

"I'm sure you'll give it your best effort," Nalicana said. The two women smiled, like two old friends taking tea together.

"While you're here," Nalicana went on, "I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"You know I will tell you nothing that you could find useful."

"Perhaps not, but one does wonder. Your people and mine have never met before yesterday, except in the kind of skirmish where there's no opportunity to talk. But copies of some of your documents have come into our possession, and ---"

"How?"

"Some of them we found on the bodies of your warriors," Nalicana said. "For instance, the 'Address to the Faithful,' signed by you, which contains the phrases 'we come to subjugate those who are unfit to govern themselves' and 'for the glory of the Old Ones.' I would like to confirm, in the first place, whether the Old Ones are the beings we now call the Slithis. They lived in the water, I believe?"

"Yes. They were old and wise, and taught us everything we knew."

"And you generally didn't see their bodies? Only the tentacles and eyestalks they thrust above the water? And their juvenile forms floated in the air, and had one big eye and half-a-dozen claws?"

"Yes. Why do you keep talking of them in the past tense? Did the Living Shadow destroy them all?"

"Not quite. There are still a few left, but they have degenerated. I'll tell you a little about them. More than ten thousand years ago, the Dericost --- you know about the Dericost? you've been reading the Lyceum library --- the party of Dericost called the Filinuvekta, the Winds from Darkness, came to these lands and one of them saw the last of the adults. She said it was the size of Tenkarrdun, the great volcano that used to rise in the northeast, pumping out pyreal magma. It's gone now, and so are the adult Old Ones. In my youth, before the Sundering, there were some left in the --- I won't say adult, but the sessile form, the tentacles protruding above water or soft ground. We'd find them in the southeast, but they were small. Ten paces across, perhaps: five or six tentacles and an eyestalk. No larger. We called them Slithis. They never showed any sign of intelligence."

Helethiska stared at her. "Is this true?"

"What benefit would I gain by lying about it? Now, this was about a thousand years ago. At present, there are very few sessile Slithis to be found. Most of them are in caverns deep underground, lashing out with one or two tentacles, no more. But there are many of the larval forms, the Spawn, floating over swampy regions.

"Unfortunately, all of them, larval and sessile, are severely tainted by Chaos. The influence of the Kemeroi, which your ancestors called the Living Shadow, has corrupted them. But there is one group of them, I won't say where, on whom a ritual can be performed that destroys the corrupt Slithis and causes a pure, untainted, benevolent Spawn to rise into the air. This Spawn casts a benediction upon its rescuer, and disappears. So I think there is hope that the Slithis may someday be freed from corruption, if the world can be. We are working toward that goal."

Helethiska lowered her eyes. "Leave me, please," she said finally. "I have to think."

Nalicana rose. "Of course. I'll see you this afternoon, perhaps. May your meditations be fruitful."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"He's not in the Tower," Tapuaua reported. "Or if he's there, he's not visible. I called a few times, and got no answer."

"Well ---" Daraua looked around. They were standing just off the Ikeras Nexus, which was crowded with eager warriors hoping Ju'xatl would come back to be slain again; so far he had not. "We could try the Antechamber; he visits there sometimes."

Isin Dule was there, standing on his dais at the far end of the Antechamber, talking to two young Lugians in Shadow armor. "It's true," he was saying to them, "you and you alone can decide what you will do. But before you do it, you would do well to consider: What will you see in the mirror, after you have done it?" He caught sight of the Tonk and said, "Excuse me." The young Lugians wandered away, muttering quietly to one another.

"My friends," Dule said. "What brings you here?"

"You said once," Daraua said, "that you could portal to any place on Auberean."

"Just about," Dule said. "With the usual exceptions, such as shrines of the Light."

"What about Dericost?"

Dule bowed his head. "I could," he said. "But I beg of you, don't ask it of me. Dericost is covered by Olthoi and their fungus now; I don't want to see it."

"Could you send us there?"

"You must be very eager to embrace the Lifestone," Dule said. "Just a moment." He brought out two dull pebbles and held them in the palms of his hands. After a moment they glowed with a searing blue light, and faded again till they were no brighter than stars. "There you are," he said. "Do take care."

"We will," Tapuaua said, and cupped her two hands around his for a moment. Then she and Daraua used the gems and vanished.

They materialized atop a high ridge overlooking a plain that seemed to descend in a series of scarps toward the distant sea. As predicted, the bare ground was strewn with the hyphae and toadstools of the Olthoi-life. At the other end of the ridge rose something that might be the ruins of buildings. Below, something moved, too far away for them to tell what kind of Olthoi it was.

"Well," Daraua said. "This is a good place to start." He took a few steps away from the drop point, and took from his pouch a lightweight mallet and a short rune-inscribed stake, much smaller than the ones he had set all over the Drudge Citadel and south of Fort Tanua. He drove it into the ground, and said, "We'll begin from here."

Tapuaua took from her own pouch a censer heavy with incense, and he lit it. "Upon the earth the smoke let fall," she began, and they made a widening spiral around the stake, clearing the fungus from a circle nearly a bowshot across before the censer burnt out. Far below, an Olthoi chittered angrily, as if it had caught a whiff of the incense and feared it.

"That should ensure, at least, that no one gets attacked at the drop point," Daraua said. "I suppose the next thing to do is to clear this ridge. It's possible those ruins could be rebuilt. Back to Farali for more stakes!" They beat their drums and disappeared.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"How are you getting on?" Aracoeli asked. "Nalicana was in talking to your Blood-Mother all morning, but I don't know if anyone's come to see you."

"A man named Eshivon Ugim came by," Nagual said, "and told me something about the history of the world, between the time my ancestors left it, and the time yours did. He told me about Geraine, for instance. More than I cared to know."

"Geraine is gone," Aracoeli said. "As gone as anyone can be: he went outside the circles of this world, in search of the Kemeroi, and I suppose he found them." She made a little gesture of disgust, pushing away something invisible with her hands. "I should think it, or they, would eat him chipped, creamed, and spread on toast, and serve him right."

"Did you ever see him?"

"No. He was gone before we returned from the Sundered Lands. But he slew Asheron, and I wish him all the harm there is."

"Asheron is dead then? We couldn't find any record of his death in the Lyceum."

"He died after the Sundering, centuries ago," Aracoeli said, not meeting his eyes. "Come, is there anything else we can talk about? Something of no military value? I've been warned to be careful what I say to you."

"Maybe you can help me identify the things I saw in a dream last night. I've seen its beginning many time before, but the rest of it last night."

"Nalicana has had many dreams that turned out to mean something," Aracoeli said. "What did you see?"

"I was carrying something in my hands," he said, "something so dark that I could not tell what it was. I was walking among trees, and I heard the sound of a waterfall. Then I came out into the open and saw it, falling from a high cliff, with a great statue standing atop it, the colossal figure of some hero, holding out his hand over the falls. And I walked straight into the falls with the dark thing, and when I came out into the day again, it was no longer dark. It glowed deep red, like blood with the light behind it, so that I knew it was holy."

"Yes, you Falatacot do think a lot of blood, don't you. Never mind; I'm sorry. Go on."

"When I came out of the darkness, I was standing on what seemed at first to be solid ground, but it was the tightly grown foliage of a great tree. It was some ten or twelve paces across: but I took one step too many and fell headlong, into deep water --- it was another waterfall, in fact, that took me down with it, and poured me out bruised and gasping onto a riverbank far below. And the thing I was holding was green, like the light shining through the leaves of that great tree." He looked expectantly at Aracoeli, but she said only, "Go on."

"I'm not sure what happened next. In the way of dreams, I was there, and then I was somewhere else. I may have gone through a portal. I was inside a great building, or some kind of structure, I think perhaps underground. Streams of water fell from the ceiling and cascaded into the depths below the bridge I crossed. Then downstairs, and down again, and I came into a hall with three tall pillars at its far end ---"

"And you touched the pillars?"

"Yes. Do you know the place? I touched the pillars, and was portaled somewhere else. Then I went downstairs again, and in a pit beneath my feet there was a fountain. I leaped into it. The waters closed over my head. And when I came up again ---"

"Did you have to kill a guardian of the fountain? A water elemental?"

"I didn't see anything like that. But when I came up again, the thing in my hand shone pure white. And I saw that it was a sword."

"Well," Aracoeli said. "I'm not going to tell you where any of those places are, because I think that really would be military information. But I'll tell you what they are. The first thing you saw, the colossus above the waterfall, is the figure of Aun Aulatah, Shi Aulatah I should say."

"A title of rank?"

"The title of rank is the -tah part, it means 'king.' But before that he was called Aun Aulaua, 'Aula the Elder Shaman of the Aun tribe.' But as king, he united the warring tribes, the Aun and --- Hea, I think their name was, but don't carve that in stone. He united them and called them the Shi tribe, and now all the Tonk we have can put 'Shi' before their names, only mostly they don't bother."

"And he's holding out his hand in blessing over the land?"

"I wish! He's holding the severed head of his enemy. The Hea king, I guess. I wish Tapuaua were here, she could tell you all this stuff. It's certainly someone's head."

"As I said, he's holding it in blessing over the land," Nagual repeated.

"You would," Aracoeli said. "Well, the next place is the Great Deru Tree, it's an important force in maintaining the life of the world. I don't understand it really, it's Tonk theology, and I don't know where it came from. One thing that's funny about it: it's up on a high ridge, and everywhere the land falls away from it. And all the rivers that run across that part of the country, they all begin with waterfalls flowing away from the Deru Tree. I have no idea where the water comes from --- unless the Tree draws it all up with its roots.

"And the third place, that's the Water Temple, and the fountain in the pit is called the Font of Eaulith. We use it to, um, I'd better not say, but it purifies things. So it looks as if you took that thing in your dream, whatever it was, to three different important water sources, to purify it. Maybe it's your soul."

"Maybe," Nagual said.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Runestakes now covered the whole of the ridge, and the fungi were dead and rotting. Tapuaua had scattered seeds about, and with the next rain, Light willing, they would sprout. There was no remnant of the native Dericostian plant life left, so she had taken seeds from Dereth and seeds from Knorr and mixed them with a random hand. Some would thrive, some would not, according to the conditions here, and someday Dericost would have its own characteristic flora again. Up ahead of her, Daraua had reached the ruined buildings. There was not much left of them: patterned floors, tumbled walls, a few scattered roof-slates. The stone of the walls was severely eroded, probably by the acid the Olthoi breathed into the air. In a courtyard a fallen statue lay like a leper, its face gone, its fingers gone. "What is this stuff made of?" Tapuaua asked. "Marble?"

"Marble and limestone," Daraua said. "There's probably more in these hills, and someday our friends, or their descendants, may quarry it and build new cities."

"Maybe," Tapuaua said. "Or --- Let's get on with it; we have a whole continent to clear."

"True," Daraua said. "Time for Plan Two."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Are you feeling better?" Nalicana asked.

"I think so, thank you," Helethiska said cautiously.

"Good. I wanted to resume our discussion about your Address to the Faithful." Helethiska sat back in her chair, folded her hands in her lap. She said nothing.

"For example, when you refer to Auberean as your original home. Do you know that it wasn't?"

"What?"

"Long ago, a traveler found an ancient city, floating in the skies above Dereth, reachable only through occasional portals that appeared and disappeared at random. He explored it thoroughly and discovered that it had been inhabited, and abandoned, at least twice. The second wave of inhabitants were my own people, the Yalaini, who found it when Asheron first discovered --- or rediscovered --- planar magic. The first inhabitants ---" she pulled a slip of parchment from her sleeve. "I have copied down his words for you.

" 'While many doubt the Empyrean of the Ages before the Era of Lore knew the secrets of portal magic, I may hazard a well-educated guess that perhaps Asheron's find was a mere "rediscovery." It is clear to me that, long ago, far before the millennium war and far before even the first stirrings of Falatacot malice in the swamps of the world, the Empyrean came here from elsewhere, perhaps much in the way we did ... except they came willingly. Other scholars may accuse me of imaginative fancy, but they assuredly have not seen all that I have.

" 'Nay; this much I know: the Empyrean arrived here many thousands of years ago, with a singular purpose. What that purpose is, even I can only hazard an unfounded guess. What is clear, however, is that they forgot this purpose over the long ages. Some Isparian scholars would claim the same of humanity in general, but I am not in the mood for comparative theological discourse today.' "

"A purpose ... " Helethiska murmured, "... which they forgot over the ages." She sat silently for a moment. "I can guess it, though. We have traveled over many worlds since we left Auberean. We know that nowhere does the Blood of the World flow as strongly as here. Perhaps that is what our ancestors sought."

"Perhaps. You call it Blood; we call it mana, and the gift of the Light. Continuing, you say that your cousins --- that means my ancestors, I assume? --- could not or would not help you in your need. Did you ask us? That's not a rhetorical question; I really want to know. The time when your people fled the Kemeroi is earlier than our earliest records. Did you call on us? Did we refuse you? Or is it possible that your call never reached us?

"In any case, we are here now. There are fewer than ten thousand intelligent beings left on this world. Even if Ju'xatl is right and there are intelligent Olthoi. Even if there are, I don't think they and we can live on the same world. They are not willing to share. Your people and mine, however ---"

"Your people are not fit to associate with us. You are weak and soft; witness the fact that you were unable to fight the Olthoi."

"That's true: when they came, we couldn't fight them. We can now."

Again Helethiska was silent for a moment. "That's true; you are fighting them. Not only you, but the vermin you associate with. How did it happen?"

"That's one of the things I'm not allowed to tell you. As for the mortal races of Auberean, do not despise them. They are emphemerals; they live for less than a century. Their flame burns quickly and is gone: but it burns very brightly. Do not underestimate them.

"Let me tell you about a Yalaini named Gaerlan. Through a series of accidents he came out of the Sundered Lands while the rest of us slept. There was no other Empyrean on Dereth except Asheron. Well, there was one other, but he was a recluse who took no side in the battle. Gaerlan was a master mage, an adept at the twelve schools of magic. He had been one of Asheron's finest pupils, before he took to evil. He sought to destroy not only Asheron but all the mortals; like you, he called them vermin.

"They destroyed him. Mostly the Humans, with a little help from Asheron: they took out Gaerlan's flying castle; they took out his four massive elemental generals; they penetrated his underground fortress; they excised all his powers and imprisoned him for centuries in a stasis crystal; and they took his fiery sword Iasparailaun, that was forged to slay them all, and hung it on their walls as a trophy. They are worthy to be our allies, yours and mine."

The door to Nalicana's chamber, separated from Helethiska's by the crystal panel, opened. "What is it, Aracoeli?"

"My Lady, the Raven would like to speak to you. There's ---" Glancing at Helethiska, Aracoeli shut her mouth suddenly.

"Forgive me; I must see what this is about. I'll be back."

But Helethiska gave no answer; she was not looking at either of the Yalaini, but at something to her left. Nalicana hurried out the door and let it swing shut. Helethiska was left staring at emptiness. "Who are you?" she said at last.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"A great army of Shadows is gathering in the north, on the Chaos Planes," the Raven reported. "Not Isin Dule's Shadows, you understand: Hopeslayer's Shadows. But one of Dule's people put on her Shadow armor and went to get a look at them. She's putting together a report now in the Shadow Sanctuary; but she said there were at least a thousand and she's sure she saw Naokim in the middle of them. Then one of them sent her to the Lifestone: not because he realized she was a spy, she thinks, but only out of casual spite. We have scouts out along the northern roads and on the cliffs now, and on the island in the Crater Lake, waiting to see if and when they head south."

"Good. Keep me posted; Dule knows about all this already, I assume? Send someone tell Thromer.

"Already done, my Lady."

Nalicana returned to her chamber opposite Helethiska's cell, but the Blood-Mother had retreated to her bedroom, only partially visible to Nalicana. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, staring into space. Thinking about what I told her, I hope, Nalicana thought, and went away again.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"Daraua, I salute you," Tapuaua said. "You've taken the Falatacot charm and multiplied it tenfold, a hundredfold." They were standing on the ridge, looking down at the plain that fell in ranks of scarps to the sea. Beside them, lined up along the edge and stretching all the way to the ruined city, fourteen empty buckets lay on their sides. Below them, the whole plain was clean of fungi. One hobbling Olthoi Worker, its chitin dulled, its eyes oozing ichor, staggered toward them, claws waving feebly, and collapsed: twitched, and never moved again.

"It's all a question," Daraua said smugly, "of being able to understand when effects will not scale, and when they will scale, and how. After that it's all a matter of engineering. Shall we explore? It looks like another ruined building, down there by the sea."

They hopped down the scarps, one after another. Some of the rock was yellow, some white; Tapuaua scratched at this with her claw, and then took out a knife and scratched it again. "Medium hardness," she said obscurely. "Good."

"That is no ruin," Daraua said. They stared at the building ahead of them, now close enough to make out some detail. "Look; its roof is intact. And something like a garden has been laid out around it, though Ezheret knows what could be growing there." He took a few more steps, then stopped. "You go and look at it if you want," he said. "I must confess, I'll never see nineteen again and I'm growing tired."

"Stay and rest," Tapuaua said, and walked on toward the house. As she drew closer, she saw that the roof was not even the slate she had expected, but a sort of crude thatching made of the stems of toadstools, and the garden rows were planted with little mushrooms with bells no larger than eggs. Tidy and domestic; but surely no Olthoi had made that garden, and nothing else could eat its crops ---

There was a window in the wall. Inside it, something was moving, making little sounds like metal and stone clicking together. Tapuaua dropped to all fours and crept toward the window, pulled off her helmet lest the crest atop it betray her, and raised her eyes just above the windowsill.

Inside there was a fireplace, but no fire, and a corroded iron pot was hanging over it, but there was nothing in it. As she watched, a tall figure turned toward it, a splintered wooden spoon in its hand, and bent to stir the air inside the empty pot.

Ferah.

The Shadow turned back to a stone counter where a large bowl sat, and several smaller crocks and dishes. She lifted one, dipped it in the bowl, rubbed it, and set it down to drain: going through the motions of washing dishes, in a bowl empty of water, dishes that no food had touched for thousands of years.

This must be the village called Daralet, or what was left of it, where Ilservian Palacost had lived with his son Avoren before the troubles came, and Omadin, Ler Rhan, Elithra, and Isin Dule. And Ferah had returned here, not to live, but to endure all alone.

Tapuaua crouched again, and felt in her pouch for the rattle Asheron had given her, and crept around the side of the house toward the doorway. The door had fallen from its hinges and lay disintegrating on the ground. Ferah had heard her, and turned; and Tapuaua flicked her rattle, once, and pouched it again.

The shadowy covering around the tall figure was dissolving, and the glaring eyes began to soften. Bone was taking shape out of the darkness, and flesh forming to cover it. Ferah staggered and would have fallen, but Tapuaua caught her.

"Ilservian?"

"He's gone ahead of you," Tapuaua said. "He is waiting for you. It won't be long."

"Ilservian," Ferah said, as though there was no other thought in her mind any longer.

"He's gone on ahead," Tapuaua repeated. "He is waiting for you. Soon you'll be together again." And she was holding nothing but dust in her arms.

Light and Animae, don't make me a liar. Let it be true.

Then she got up, and put her helm back on, and went out of the house and let the wind blow the dust away from her armor, and walked back up the slope to where Daraua was resting. "Well, somebody lived there once," she said, "but there's nothing alive there now."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Nagual, though he sat quietly in the chair in his little room, one hand on his little table and the other on his empty scabbard, felt as though inside him a large pot was slowly coming to the boil. He had been visited by several kind polite Yalaini, and one kind polite Human, and even by the kind polite Lugian whose floating faceless minions had captured him the day before. Understandably, they had all asked him questions; understandably they had been willing to tell him no news that was less than four hundred years old. When last heard from, the infamous Geraine had slain Asheron, an emissary of the Living Shadow known as the Hopeslayer, and the kind polite Lugian's predecessor as leader of whatever it was he was leader of. There their stories stopped short: except that Geraine had surfaced again more recently, been defeated apparently, and gone outside the world to confront the Darkness: Aracoeli had let that slip. It was plain he would learn no more here, and it was time to resume his efforts to escape. He waited for an opening.

It came in the form of the Servitor bringing him his mid-day meal. He rose as it entered, backed away from the table. And as it bent to lay down the tray, he made an axe of the heel of his hand and struck at the Servitor, breaking its eye-jewel, and dodged around it and out the door. Next door, the Blood-Mother's quarters. He tugged at the latch and the door opened. Fools! He would --- but the Blood-Mother was not inside. He darted into the room, looked everywhere, even under the bed, ran out again before the door could swing closed. The Servitor was calling for help. He glanced quickly to right and left. Wherever the Blood-Mother had gone, he must not waste this opportunity. She would make her own. There was a solid door to his left, a stairwell to his right; he ran to the stairs and climbed as quickly and silently as he was able.

A round stone room, perhaps the one he had been in before: nothing to be seen in it now, except another stairway; he ran to it and climbed again. Another round room, with a domed ceiling and a ring of high windows under it, nothing he could climb to. There were chairs and cushions on the floor, and another large chair like a throne, on a dais at the far end. And to the right some things hung on the wall: some jewels or ornaments, and a sword.

He ran to the wall and tore the sword down from its place. It was subtly curved and seemed to shine with a faint greyish-red light, but he cared nothing what it looked like, if only he could fight with it. Nowhere else to go; he turned and ran down the stairs again.

The blinded Servitor was still calling for help, and help had come; no troops, but several of the northerners he had seen before: Yalaini, and Humans, and the big Lugian who was gesturing in the air, perhaps attempting to call up his minions again. Nagual slashed his sword around him in a near-circle, and the northern vermin all jumped back at the sight of it. Cowards! He ran past them to the door at the other end of the hall: unlocked. He pushed it open and ran through: another stairway leading down, and at the bottom, a portal. Not stopping to wonder, he stepped into it and the vortex caught him up and carried him away.

He was in a wide hall --- no, more of an excavation in the rock, and it was open to the sky overhead. Many of the northerners, representing all five kinds, stood or sat in the hall, inspecting weapons, reading dispatches --- what! had he been portaled into their headquarters? Several of them were Yalaini, with their golden eyes --- he sheathed his sword and cast his own eyes down, trying to moderate his hastened breathing, trying to blend in. And at the other end of the cavern was a little open wooden hut, and in it a dark bald-headed Human stood, calling out, "Casting Hakata portal. Hakata, coming up." He waved a long sceptre and the pale rose of a portal appeared in the air. Casually, as if he did it every day, Nagual strolled over to the portal and stepped through.