Coda, Chapter Four: The Heroine`s Journey

"I've dreamed about him before --- many times. But this was different."

"Tell me what was different." It had taken them some time to reach this stage, for Nalicana had awoken gasping with terror. But Tapuaua was a healer, and had learned patience.

"Always before ... I would see things, things out of the past, things out of my own memories, and Asheron telling me, 'Do what I chose you to do. Protect and defend the people.' But this time I saw something else, a place I didn't recognize, and he told me ... I couldn't understand what he told me. He showed me Yalaini fighting Olthoi, and defeating them! And he told me there was something I should learn. But he never told me what I should learn." She closed her long fingers around the cup of tea the Tonk had brewed for her, as if to warm them.

"Tell me about the place. Tell me what you saw."

"There was an orrery. We were high up, above the battlefield, but the orrery was higher still, over our heads, turning against the stars. There were six of them in Dereth alone; I don't know how many survived the Cataclysm."

"We can look for them later. What else did you see?"

"There was Asheron --- and Ciandra. I'm sure it was Ciandra. And they took my arms and turned me around...." Nalicana shuddered, and closed her eyes.

"What do you see?"

"Pillars," Nalicana said softly. "Four pillars, maybe more, holding up the base of the orrery. And between them there is a portal."

"Ahhh," Tapuaua said. "Drink your tea. I understand now. I know where you were, and what they meant. It means ---"

--- and the Voice of the Shrine spoke, piercingly sweet and interrupting all other voices: The arcane energies of the Shrine of Transcendance have empowered Cashtal. He is now a Hero!

"Yes," Tapuaua said, and set her own cup down with the delicacy that conceals a desire to jump up and down and break things.

"What does it ---"

The arcane energies of the Shrine of Transcendance have empowered Aracoeli. She is now a Heroine!

"Ah, good work, Aracoeli! She's keeping up with them. I expect to hear from her again sometime today."

And another voice interrupted, from the small painting on the wall --- it represented a speaking mouth, and was fed by the ear on the door below. "Lady Nalicana? Are you at home?"

"That's Pfeil," Tapuaua said, and Nalicana roused herself to make the gesture that portaled Pfeil up the tower and deposited her gently on the carpet before them.

"Wow!" the Human cried. "That's something new!"

"Lots is new," Tapuaua said, ungrammatically. "Did you hear the message from the Shrine?"

"Of course," Pfeil said. "Aracoeli made Heroine! I'm not surprised; she's been training hard."

"She was devoted to Asheron," Nalicana said. "I think she's determined to avenge him. I don't know upon whom she will avenge him, with Geraine gone out of the world, but whoever it is had better watch out."

"Is that why she always wears black?" Pfeil said. "She came to me yesterday, asking to be released from the Order of Chaos so she could join an all-Yalaini allegiance. Of course I didn't mind. I didn't mind when half our Drudges left to join Lunar Brownie's allegiance."

"Did you notice the name of the other fellow, who made Hero at the same time?"

"Yeah. Cat ... no, Cashtal." Pfeil frowned. "Do I know that name from somewhere?"

" 'Cashtal' was the birth-name, and is currently the eke-name, of Kellin II, the last Yalaini Emperor."

Pfeil swore. "Now I understand a lot of things. I was afraid he'd return when the rest did. You knew about this, didn't you, Tapu? And now I understand why the Imperator asked me to come here and offer Nalicana any help I could." She smiled. "Which I'd be happy to do in any case, of course. What shall I do?"

"Prepare for war," Nalicana said. "Other than that ---" she glanced at Tapuaua, who grinned, displaying many sharp teeth.

"My Lady? Have you ever done the Hero Quest?"

Nalicana looked blank. "No."

"You need to do the Hero Quest. Pfy, how soon could we get a party together?"

Pfeil shrugged. "Ten minutes. Less than that."

"Finish your tea, my Lady, and we'll go."

"Now explain to me, please," Nalicana said as they surveyed the pale green alpine valleys and icy foothills of Mount Malthabbor, "why we are doing this."

"Ciandra's life work was the study of the Temples of Enlightenment and Forgetfulness, at the extreme southern and northern shores of Dereth. Did you ever visit them, my Lady?"

"No. I never had the opportunity. They have been described to me. Two of those great Falatacot stone heads, that when propitiated would portal one underground."

"Yes. You were asking me about schisms among the Falatacot; I think it's possible those Temples were built by the faction that worshipped the Light --- because instead of asking for offerings of blood, as you'd expect, those heads asked for offerings of flowers or herbs. And within, one found crystals that enabled one to learn, and unlearn, various skills. The arts of the Eaters of Souls are based on what Ciandra found there."

"There's one," Jorgen said, and bent his bow. Rebvaz joined in the attack, and a bony Revenant Collaborator, trying to reach them, dropped almost on their toes, bristling with arrows like a pincushion. Jorgen turned it over with his foot, and a shining crystal fell out of its tattered tunic. "One gem," he said.

"Another over the hill there," Rebvaz said, and the party moved onward.

"The crown of her work," Tapuaua went on, "was the Shrine of Transcendance, which she and Asheron hoped would unlock the limited abilities of the Humans, Tonk, and Lugians, and give them powers equal to those of the Empyreans. Our limitations, she said, were not physical but mental: our minds have deeply set rules declaring what is and isn't possible, and it seemed we could not break them by our own efforts. But what the Archons left behind in their Holding is able, in some way, to impress new patterns upon our minds, and break our fetters."

"Well?"

"Well --- it seems the Yalaini had limitations on their own minds. With all your powers, with all your skills, there was something that prevented you from combatting the Olthoi. Something that, for all our other limitations, never applied to us.

"But there are Yalaini Heroes now. And they can fight Olthoi with the best of them. And you're going to join them."

Nalicana said nothing. Jorgen and Rebvaz returned from over the hill, grinning. "Over there!" Pfeil called, pointing, and the party re-formed and went after the next Collaborator.

Nalicana did not speak again for a while. They collected enough Portal Gems and to spare, and portaled into the Archons' Holding a dark low-vaulted room with clusters of indigo crystals growing from walls and ceiling, and the Control Matrix sputtering like heat-lightning in the center. "Touch that," Pfeil said, "and you can get back in any time." Nalicana obediently touched it.

They made their way down the twisting corridors toward Hahnain's Seminary. At every turn there was a stone head, taller than any of them, with a baleful green fire glowing in its open mouth. Once, when a lone Mephitic Skeleton burst through the rest of the party and approached her, Nalicana felled it with a single gesture like swatting a fly.

("You see," Jorgen said to Tapuaua, as they brought up the rear. "It's not that she can't fight. It's that she fears to," and Tapuaua said, "I resemble that remark.")

They found the Seminary, lined with shelves containing books and one strangely distorted humanoid skull, and a few annoyed Gurog Warlocks who did not live to be annoyed for long. They purloined a key from a storeroom full of sceptres, orbs, and drums, and opened the door on the opposite side of the room.

The cell inside was small, with just room enough for a dais holding two crystals. One was relatively small --- the length of a Lugian's arm --- like the ones that grew from the walls. The other almost filled the room, jammed against its low ceiling, so that at first it seemed to be a shaft of light, or several shafts all converging upon the figure within. But it was a crystal, in shape like one of the Vault Menhirs, but shining white, the ghost of a Menhir: and the ghost of a Tonk was imprisoned inside it.

"Touch the Memory Crystal, and then the larger crystal, to talk to Aun Aulatah and receive his quest," Pfeil said; but Nalicana stepped forward with a low cry and held her hand up to the crystal, only a fingersbreadth away from it, with a look of fierce concentration on her face.

"What a fearful thing," she said, "and ingenious. Look how the physical and the mental are woven together, like a living thing, and encoded to be a prison --- oh, can't you see it? I'm sorry."

"Can you see how it works?" Jorgen asked. "Do you understand it? If you understand it, perhaps you can break it."

"Not at present, I can't," Nalicana said. "Not without long study. I could make one of these, though, to a simpler pattern." She blinked, and seemed to come back to the world around her. "And that's just as well. I was wondering how I was going to contain an angry Golem, or an insane Colossus, once I had transported it to Linvak. Now I know."

"The crystals," Pfeil reminded her.

Nalicana touched the shining thing, and the imprisoned spirit turned to her and seemed to speak. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I will. I promise." She turned from it and touched the Memory Crystal, and took from it the shining green Mnemosyne and put it in her bodice. "Let's go," she said. "We have much to do. Where next? Where are Aulatah's ashes?"

"Artefon Catacombs," Pfeil said. "Jorgen, do you have the portal?"

"Coming up," Jorgen said, and gestured with his bow, and a portal opened in the air.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"Thank you for coming to see me," Thromer said. "I would have called upon you, only no one ever seems to know where you are."

"Yes," Isin Dule said. "Like Asheron of old, who hid from public view, lest men seek to kill him or to worship him. If what I hear is true, there are those who hate me, fear me, venerate me, seek me for their own advantage, even pity me."

"I wanted to talk to you," Thromer said tactfully, after a moment had passed, "about a report I had from one of my people this morning. You know who S.H.R.E.T.H are?"

"A criminal organization, headquartered on Linvak Massif, active there and on Arramora," Dule said. "But did I not hear something about their having abandoned their lair on Linvak?"

"They have a new hideout now," Thromer said, "on a little island southwest of Linvak, with an extinct volcanic crater in its center --- at least, they had better hope it's extinct. It's inhabited mostly by gromnies, but somebody long ago made a road that still leads through a tunnel into the crater, and inside is the entrance to their new headquarters, which is huge --- the architecture is Lugian in style, but we never built anything like it even in our greatest days. The door is locked by a runic spell that must be unlocked by touching the correct runes, and the code-word --- the super-secret password that's supposed to keep out all but the initiates --- is 'SHRETH.' Those guys would cause us a lot more trouble if the majority of them weren't so stupid. There are a couple of smart people at the top, but that's all. One visualizes their leader as being the kind of archvillain in the sagas who is always tearing his hair (if he has any) and crying out, "Why, WHY am I perpetually surrounded by idiots?!"

From behind Dule's expressionless mask came a faint sound like ghostly laughter.

"So. Justiciar Maronak is still sending out parties to investigate them, and one of my people went out yesterday with some friends who'd done it before. He says he overheard some guards talking, one of them asking, essentially, 'How were we able to build this great hideout? We could never do it before. And where did all the stone go?' And the other told him it had been hollowed out by stone-eating Golems."

"Did the Golems go outside to --- ah --- eliminate? And if so, where did they do it? Is the island littered with piles of decomposed rock?"

"I think that's what the first guard was about to ask, but the other shut him up with a threat to betray him to their superiors if he asked any more questions.

"Now here's the part my man particularly wanted to tell me about. When his party got into the central part of the fortress, behind a maze of stony ramps and secret doors and Tuu knows what all, and were about to confront Number Two. That's what their leader is called."

"Who is Number One?"

"Ah, that's what everyone would like to know. No one has ever seen him. Even Number Two doesn't use him to threaten with, and that's surprising; at least, it surprises me. But here the party was, about to confront Number Two, and as they were about to turn the corner, several of them popped Elemental Lights.

"And the leader said immediately, 'No more Lights past this corner. They'll drift down the hall and mess things up.' So they didn't.

"But you see what this implies. I don't know about before, when they were on Linvak, but it looks as if S.H.R.E.T.H. are now allied with Chaos."

"Tainted with it, at least," Dule agreed. "It sound as if I ought to go and investigate the place myself."

"That's what I was hoping you'd say," Thromer said. "The search parties aren't really equipped to test for Chaos-taint, and when they fight Number Two he just vanishes."

"I shall go," Dule said. "I'll have to pick a time when no one else is out there: an Elemental Light will expel me faster than it will Number Two's minions."

"Oh, I can fix that," Thromer said, reaching into a twist of portalspace and pulling out a piece of parchment. He scribbled a quick note and sealed it with a dot of purple light, held it out and watched it disappear into the Shadow. "Give that to Justiciar Maronak; he'll hold off all parties for twenty-four hours. Thank you --- and good luck."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Palerath, who had been working since sun-up, sat in a chair in the middle of a disordered hall deep in the core of the Skyport, one boot off, applying curative spells to his blistered heel. Around him, the hall bustled with activity: the True Inheritors were picking up trash for disposal, sweeping, dusting, setting chairs in neat rows and columns facing a dais with an ornate podium on it. The Olthoi had never gotten in here, even at the end, but it was clear the place had been abandoned in a hurry.

"We're making headway in the kitchens," Aracoeli reported. "The hearths are cleaned, the storage chambers are emptied out and the preservative spells appear still to be in order, as soon as Belegon can spare a minute to activate them. And Maglin's bringing in supplies, if he isn't lost again --- there are an awful lot of corridors out there."

"I think he can take his time," Palerath said, looking over his shoulder where the mage Belegon was still struggling with a crystal array set just inside the entrance to the hall. "How are we getting on, Belegon?"

"Doing our best, my Lord," Belegon said in a carefully controlled voice. "I think the mechanism is working, but I have to make sure that its coding is unique, so that anyone who recalls to this stone ends up here, and not anywhere else. If Maglin is still lost, someone had probably better go and find him."

"All right," said Palerath. "Carry on."

"I'll go find him," said a stocky (for an Empyrean) man, taking off the apron he had wrapped around his waist. "I think I know where he is."

"We're going to need a Lifestone in here too."

"Yes, Cashtal, but we can wait a few days for that. Once Belegon gets the Binding Stone working, this will be our Hall and we can seal the front door, and make ourselves a private Lifestone at our leisure. You might consider where to put it, when you have a moment. How are the inventories progressing?"

"Kitchen and related storage, completed, as Aracoeli just said. I'm still working through the armories, but I should be finished soon: they're sadly depleted. It looks as if the last company that was stationed here took everything they could and went to fight their last battle."

"We'll have to replenish them."

"Yes, my Lord. I want to go back to the Archons' Holding at some point, and see if anything there is worth salvaging. Hahnain's storeroom is full of magical devices, and it isn't as though he's going to need them again."

"Very well. Have a care, though. We can't use anything that's Chaos-tainted."

"Yes, my Lord." He pulled the nearest chair out of its careful alignment and sat in it, stretching his legs out as if they, too, hurt. He looked at one of the papers in his hand, made a note on it, and exchanged it for another.

The arcane energies of the Shrine of Transcendence have empowered Nalicana. She is now a Heroine!

Palerath raised his head and said, "Hm." Kellin, his mind on other matters, paid no attention.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
That afternoon the South Gevoth Outpost was strangely quiet. Two bewildered Gearknights marched in quickstep into the Outpost and stopped short. The central circle was empty. Outside, other Gearknights milled about like children without their father, like ants without their queen. A few scattered parts lay on the rim of the forge, but Ludward was gone.

Many klicks to the southeast, Ludward and the Gear Master faced each other warily. "No," the Gear Master said in its calm metallic voice. "You may not disassemble me. Indeed, you may lay neither a finger nor a tool on me; if you try it I shall knock you down. You heard what the Lady said: we are to work together to build new brains that will not be --- how did she put it? --- as mad as Mosswarts. There are the components. We can begin when you are ready. I have plenty of time."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Under a westering sun, Nalicana ran across the hills like a Lasher, seeking her prey. A Legionary Leftenant shot its bolt at her, and backhanded she cast a blast of energy that knocked it off its feet. She was not hunting Legionaries. A wandering Olthoi Worker, strayed south from its mound, spat acid at her. She turned and gave it her full attention for the few seconds it took to blast it to bits; then she went on. She was not hunting Olthoi. Her quarry lay ahead, a cluster of round boulders formed by its long-dead Lugian makers into a rough man-shape strung together by strings of magic, and of gravity, and of something called magnetism that she would find the time to understand later. She ran up to it, and as it turned to fight she pointed a thing like a wand, a long hollow tube that said "Pop!" loudly at the Colossus --- and it disappeared. Nalicana vanished a moment later.

Many klicks to the northwest, sitting at his dinner-table in Keidelur, Durgan started as the ground rumbled with the sudden arrival of the Colossus into its prison. It stamped against the floor and made all the dishes in Durgan's cupboard rattle; it lashed at the crystal walls; but they held. "Well," Durgan said, looking from the prisoned Colossus, still pounding at the walls of its cell, to the prisoned Golem, which had settled down to a fit of the quiet sulks. Durgan finished the last spoonful of his stew. "Well," he said again. "Now perhaps we may begin."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"So you can see what's in store for us," Nalicana explained. "We need a major building and rebuilding program, and we need it now. We need the people, and they will need shelter."

"I see." Lord Sigurd rose and examined a row of charts, pinned neatly to the walls of his office in the Cavendo Institute of Crafting: total volumes of trait handled by the shops in the past month, number of buildings finished and unfinished by town and region, population figures, roster of Apprentices and Journeymen being trained here at Cav Craft and at the new campus in Shinoko. And one large chart that plotted the value of gold and other traits month by month over the year.

"Well, he said. "We've been keeping the volume down, both on total trait produced and number of buildings built, lest we send the economy riding off in all directions at once. Even with our supply controls, the price of trait is an order of magnitude higher than we'd like it to be. If we release the controls, the price of trait will go through the floor and still no one will have any gold to buy it with."

"But a lot more crafting will get done."

"As long as our strength holds out."

"I know," Nalicana said. "It would be a bad situation: it would only be less bad than some of the others we could have."

"It's happened before, massive population shifts during wartime, and generally they've had to make shift as best they could, because the nation's resources are tied up in prosecuting the war. But you tell me the war's not upon us yet?"

"Not yet," she said. "The Falatacot are still fighting the Olthoi in the Southern Desolation. But they've brought in three more Legions, and I expect more to come. We have a little time to prepare: and if we don't and they catch us unprepared, we won't have an economy."

Lord Sigurd nodded, and stared in silence at his charts. "Very well," he said suddenly. "We'll release the Mining Amplifiers. Equipped with those, the miners can raise their skills by tenfold. We'll also give out region-specific maps to save time; no returning to the Cartomancer if every map you do all morning is Old Cragstone. We'll borrow some of the new Heroes to escort parties to Arramora to get Mining Carenzi. And we'll put the Architects to work on new building projects. We have a crop of journeymen Architects ready to go out into the field: their work won't win any design awards, but the roofs will keep off the rain. I don't want to see young families, mothers with small children, living in converted cowsheds and chicken-coops while the fighters go off to war. When will they begin arriving?"

"A week, perhaps? I shall need time to persuade them and they will need time to pack."

"A week." He shook his head. "Very well, there are enough vacant apartment buildings in Cragstone and Shoushi and Arwic, in Mayoi and Ikeras and Linvak, with only cosmetic not structural damage. I'll set the apprentices to plastering and painting."

"Thank you, milord," Nalicana said, and vanished.

Three Thornlings scattered for cover as she materialized in the Osteth Fettermound. Here in the center, where the ground had rippled outward as Queen Sirda and the Fetterguard died, a little peak rose. She ran up the little road that led into it, and stopped with surprise at the cluster of shining green crystal, and the little Drudge that stood beside it. Of course. The unexpected result of spell-tortured geology, the barium deposits that had risen up the shaft through which the mortals had descended. "Hello, Drizzle," she said as she went past him.

"Hey!" the Drudge called. "My mine is the only source of barium in the very world! But if you want to mine some for yourself, it'll cost ya. Twenty-five gold, and that's bargain!"

"No, thank you," she said. "I'm only passing through." She stepped around the crystal cluster and called upon the energies that so long ago had sealed the passage. Her body felt cool, as if it were melting into the rock. Behind her, Drizzle shouted, "Hey! Hey lady! What you do? Where you go? Let mine alone!"

And as easily as thought, she slipped down into the Shelter. She found herself in a great cavern, many bright grow-lights handing from its ceiling, its floor covered with gardens. The ground had been built up into raised beds, barely a foot's space between them, into which water dripped through a spiderweb of tubing. A handful of surprised gardeners stared at her. Then from the other end of the cavern came a shout. "Hey! Nalicana! Lady! What's afoot?"

"Margan," she said, and went forward to clasp the Sheltermaster's hands. "A great deal is afoot. It's time, Margan. Time for almost everyone to leave the Shelters."

"Time to leave," the old man repeated, and "Almost everyone?"

"Almost," she said. "We need to leave a skeleton staff to tend the gardens --- we'll need the food, until we can plant enough land on the surface to feed everyone. Everyone who leaves will be sent out with a bag of groceries. Women who have just given birth, or who are about to, had better stay till they've recovered. But we need everyone to come outside who can. The Falatacot have returned to Knorr, and there's going to be trouble."

"All right," Margan said, and sighed. "We hoped that when we returned to Dereth at last there would be peace. No such luck, right?"

"If there's a way to peace, it lies on the other side of the battlefield," Nalicana said. "As usual."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
As the sun set, Jorgen and Tapuaua sat and crouched at the fire in the Shoushi Allegiance Hall, grilling their evening meal. "Remarkable," Jorgen said. "No more holding back, no more self-doubt, no more 'Oh, if I could only consult Asheron.' All of a sudden she's full of confidence and energy."

" 'She is now a Heroine,' " Tapuaua said. She raised a sharp knife to a haunch of Levannath almost as big as she was. "Want another steak?"