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GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 14

And we haven't seen what Raiagamor has been up to lately...

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Chapter 14.

"We have found them."

Raiagamor could not blame Deimos for wearing a self-satisfied expression; it was a great achievement indeed, and especially so given what Deimos had gone through before. "You know where the Camp-Bels went to ground?"

"We do. Even once we realized they had survived, they had left many subtle false trails, but one of our scouts finally located them. They are in a very well-hidden and defended redoubt not far from Amoni Agapis, in the Iron Forest."

"The Iron Forest?" Raiagamor found the name amusing. The true name had meant Forest of Heroes, but the language and time had shifted long since. "Coincidence or planning, I wonder?"

Deimos shrugged. "Planning for what? It's true that Amoni's the last holdout at this point, but if you're able to hide as well as the Camp-Bels are, that wouldn't matter; being hidden within our pacified lands would be at least as useful."

"It should be obvious." He paused, and then saw Deimos' face go inhumanly rigid as it sometimes did when the demon-Xiilistiin was chastising himself.

There was no reason to describe your weaknesses to even your allies unless it became necessary, but fortifying the northern pass and planning for the intrusion of Ingram and his friends had made it necessary to explain to Deimos, Phobos, and the false Athena, the Shadow-Queen of the Xiilistiin, the one flaw in the barrier.

If the Camp-Bels had planned this, that meant someone within their ranks had deduced the location of that weakness and planned to be nearby when and if help – in the form of Ingram Camp-Bel and his friends – arrived. Overall, Raiagamor doubted it had been planned, but it didn't really matter at this point. "Your scouts have not yet acted?"

"No, sir. Your instructions were precise."

"Show me the layout as best you know it."

Deimos caused an image of the forest to appear, brought the point of view to focus on a particular location about forty miles north-northeast of Amoni Agapis. This was not far from the northern bounds of Wisdom's Fortress, rough, hilly country with many massive outcroppings of stone. The view enlarged a single hill, and finally showed a concealed entrance between two huge boulders. "We suspect there is at least one other entrance or exit; the Camp-Bels would not let themselves be cornered with no way out."

"No, they would not. There are likely at least three or four exits, all of them heavily fortified. Have we seen any activity, movement in or out?"

"They send out small, impressively stealthy patrols periodically."

Raiaga smiled. "And can your people ambush and replace one of these patrols?"

Deimos considered. "I believe so. We can move a sufficient number of our forces there so that such an ambush can be done with such swift finality that they should be unable to send any message out. However…"

"… yes?"

"I, and Shadow-Queen Athena, am not confident that even one of our people could avoid detection upon entry. They may have god-sight or something similar, or even some of the Founder's technology."

Raiagamor chuckled. "Yes, they might. But I have an answer to that. Send those who would be replacements to me, and I will ensure that they can walk unsuspected even by the gods themselves."

That was, of course, something of an exaggeration. He couldn't truly make these creatures into Great Wolves, let alone the unique being that he was, and a being of sufficient power and suspicion might still pierce their disguises. But he could improve dramatically on the Xiilistiin's impressive native ability to deceive, and that should be sufficient.

"Very well. Once they have entered, should I presume they should find, eliminate, and replace Ingram Camp-Bel's parents?"

When Raiagamor did not immediately respond, Deimos opened his mouth to repeat the question, but stopped instantly as Raiagamor raised a hand. "Wait."

Should they replace the parents now? At first glance it was the most obvious, simple, and direct way to achieve the goals: it would leave the bait there to draw in Ingram Camp-Bel and his friends, yet the bait would also be poisoned and there would be no way for Ingram to hear what his parents would say.

But.

Yes, but. The problem there was that whatever Xiilistiin took the parents would gain something of their knowledge and so on, but – in all likelihood – not all of it, especially as taking someone inside the fortress would almost certainly be a rushed job. The patrols, if successfully ambushed, could be converted slowly, taking as much as the Xiilistiin could drain from them and incorporating it into their knowledge. This was exceedingly unlikely to be the case with the parents.

And that meant there were two areas of concern. The first was that the lack of some amount of their knowledge could betray them to the Camp-Bels at any time – and there went the chance to ambush the returning hero and his allies.

Second… Raiagamor did not know what it was that Ingram's parents knew. They held a secret, or perhaps many secrets, of great import and these had to be conveyed to Ingram Camp-Bel in order to, somehow, give him a chance to, as they might say, 'put things right'. But of what those secrets were, Raiagamor had not the slightest inkling, and that was dangerous. The Xiilistiin were currently his allies. But you kept allies like the Xiilistiin at your peril, and did so best by hiding your weaknesses and emphasizing your strengths.

What if Ingram Camp-Bel's parents knew something about him – about his one true weakness, for example, or the remaining way to revive the true Athena? This would give the Xiilistiin leverage against him that he had no intention of allowing. And the one replacing them would have an excellent chance of learning such secrets.

He did, of course, have his own backup plans, his own leverage, and some very specific controls on Deimos and Phobos, but it was still a terrible risk. And a risk that, ultimately, Raiagamor felt he should never run.

Leave them alive until Ingram arrives? That he had also discussed with his aides, and would certainly eliminate any risk that the other Camp-Bels would notice anything awry about those two vital persons. In addition, it would make them excellent, if unwitting, lures for Ingram. However, that also made it possible, if unlikely, that they could get to speak with Ingram, no matter how quickly the Xiilistiin spies acted. The Camp-Bels had their reputation for a very good reason, and if they anticipated the strike by so much as a second…

"No," he said at last. Better not to make things overcomplicated. As he thought that, he felt better, more certain. The love of a complex plan for the plan's sake was a weakness he shared with the King, but he was not the King, and it was best to remember that.

"No," he repeated. "Infiltrate until you are in a position to strike, then kill everyone."

Deimos raised an eyebrow. "I thought you intended –"

"—a friendly-seeming trap? Yes, but as long as all our infiltrators aren't killed in the slaughter itself, we can likely arrange that ourselves. But if we kill all the actual Camp-Bels, then they'll never be a problem. Leaving any alive, or attempting to be too subtle? Too many ways for that to go wrong. I would rather lose a bit of information and leverage but be certain of their demise."

"And if Ingram Camp-Bel and his friends approach, we are to attempt an ambush."

"Correct. Lure them in if you can – if you can convince them that his Clan awaits within, it should be a simple matter to make their refuge a killing ground. But if they will not be deceived, slay them."

"As you wish." Raiagamor could see Deimos' hidden approval. The demon-Xiilistiin apparently had not liked the more complex plan either, but been hesitant to mention it. Important to remember; I must ensure that he and Phobos understand that I want them to tell me if I am making a mistake.

"I also have a specific task for you and Phobos," he went on. "I want you both to go and personally oversee securing the area in the north."

"Again, as you wish, Lord Ares," Deimos said, eyes narrowed, "but why should we not be directly active in the infiltration of the Camp-Bel fortifications? We are superior to those hiijaa." The word signified the rank-and-file Xiilistiin, those converted from ordinary human beings and given no special enhancements.

Raiagamor nodded. "Indeed you are, and if that were my primary means of dealing with the problem, I would place at least one of you there. However, I would prefer that the trap is never sprung at all. Therefore, I want two of my most trustworthy and powerful agents there to intercept and kill the intruders if and when they come through.

"Also," he went on, before Deimos could speak, "I may find I need either or both of you for other services; the God-Warriors of Ares are, after all, supposed to be highly visible in my court. If you are in a hidden redoubt playing the part of some vital Camp-Bel guard or officer, you can hardly just disappear for a day or three."

The false God-Warrior's mouth closed. "Ah. Yes, of course, Lord Ares. That is eminently sensible. Will there be anything else?"

"Yes," he said after a moment. "While our plan is to eliminate all resistance long before it could possibly threaten our hold on the main cities, let alone Aegis, I want to take as few risks as possible. You, Phobos, and Athena will work with me to devise the most effective inner Seal, a defensive shield that will prevent any intrusion into the Aegeian Path at all."

"Such a seal, if it is to stop Berenike, as well as her friends, will take time and considerable effort – as well as another tithe of your godspower – to construct," Phobos said after a moment. "Have we sufficient of either to make this effort worthwhile? We do not know how long it will take them to pierce the Seal once they reach the key point."

Raiagamor laughed. "More time than you might think, Phobos. Yes, they have located the one weakness of the Seal… but to call it 'weakness' is to trivialize the process of passing through. If – and I say quite honestly if – they manage the passage at all, it will be itself a heroic effort, and one costly in time as well as in peril. At the least I give them two months to pass the Seal. At the most, several months before they arrive, perhaps half a year."

"In truth?" Phobos and Deimos both regarded him in surprise.

"Even I, with my own advantages, would require time to pass through the barrier by that method. Mortals, howsoever skilled… I assure you, it will not be easy at all. I studied the structure of Athena's Seal most carefully, and I do not believe any of you quite understand what was wrought there." He waved the issue away. "No, we have time, and I have more than sufficient power to spare as well."

The two saluted him. "Anything else?" Phobos asked.

"No, that will be all. Take whatever you need to secure the calculated area of emergence; you know what forces are already in place. I will speak with the Shadow-Queen myself."

"Whatever we need? Including our particular ally?"

He thought a moment. Yes, this is the right time. I do not wish that particular being to have any closer access to this stronghold, but deploying it within Aegeia… yes, that is ideal. Even without Deimos and Phobos, it should be more than adequate to deal with our Camp-Bel friend and his party – and possibly even Berenike. "Yes. In fact, I insist. It is time we took advantage of its particular abilities. In fact, while you await our anticipated guests, it might assist Athena in reducing the last stronghold of our enemies in a particularly unnerving way."

"As you command, sir." The two bowed and departed.

Once sure they were well on their way, Raiagamor leaned back and concentrated. Athena?

Here, my love. The words were deliberately ironic. One of the newer scandals promoting unrest within the nearly-unified Aegeia was that the Incarnate Ares and Incarnate Athena had rekindled the relationship their mortal forms had had. While such relations between the gods were not – entirely – unheard of, Athena's reputation did not generally admit of such things; if Athena had any romantic relationships at all, they were things of great propriety and deep personal attachment that evolved out of her own journey towards the unification of Aegeia.

This would be a concern if the true goal was to rule over Aegeia as it was, but Raiagamor intended to break Aegeia, shatter the Cycle, and take advantage of the power of the Chaoswar now beginning to turn Aegeia into something quite antithetical to anything it had ever stood for. This situation served him well. What is the status of the armies?

She showed him a vision: her own golden tent in the center of a veritable ocean of other temporary shelters, guarded by the armies of Aegeia and four of the five other great cities, showing the colors and symbols of Apollo, Demeter, Hermes, and Artemis. We are preparing to move on Amoni Agapis tomorrow. The forces of the Anvil and the Mirror are likely trying to fortify the main pass into the city.

Raiaga nodded. Amoni Agapis sat within a nearly circular valley ringed by low but steep mountains, with one large pass to the south-southwest through which the Asimi ran, warm and broad and smooth, from Lake Cathrefti, the Mirror of Aphrodite. That pass was the obvious defensive point for the city -- though obviously their forces would try to slow any approach to the city as best they could.

Take your time. The pressures of war allow me to take many measures that, once in place, will help erase everything of human value from this civilization. Though I will require your assistance on another project. He outlined the need for the secondary Seal on the Aegeian Path. You comprehend?

Clearly, my Lord. I believe I already see the best way to achieve this, anchoring the enchantment in the solid stone of the Pathway Obelisks. As for the other, I will make the ending of the Anvil of Love as torturous as you desire. But I do have one request.

That was a surprise. Name it.

I understand from Deimos and Phobos, as well as from our discussion of this new Seal, that you do expect the four Adventurers to enter, even through the Seal of Athena. Is this true?

     I have no doubt they will, now. I was given warning by… someone I have every reason to believe. What of it?

     The Iriistiik. Give him to me and the Swarm.

     You wish to kill him?

     No. An impression of a great alien amusement and dark hunger. We have a far better use for the last of their kind. Tell them that they must not kill the Iriistiik.

He shrugged. I have no objection; without the others, that insect is of no threat to me. He concentrated. Deimos, Phobos – your Shadow-Queen wishes the Iriistiik captured, not slain. See to it.

     A sense of slight annoyance. This complicates the problem, sir. Slaughtering everyone is a simple directive; killing all but one, much harder.

Nonetheless, that is my command. I realize that it may not be possible, but make every effort to keep the Iriistiik alive. She has some use for him. And warn your pet of this requirement, or I have no doubt it will eat him without a second thought.

     Deimos and Phobos conferred a moment, something he could sense faintly. Then, It will be as you wish.

Excellent. About your business, then. He returned his attention to Athena. It is arranged.

Thanks of the Swarm to you. You will be most pleased when you see the result.

I look forward to it.

Breaking the connection, Raiagamor rose, stretching the muscles of the human body. He felt the phantom sensations of hunger, turned to make his way to the dining-hall.

Only his long-honed sense of self-preservation and paranoia saved him. As he opened the door, he saw the faintest difference in the play of light, a darkening that meant that the wall nearest him, out of line of sight, was somehow no longer reflecting like the white marble it was.

He leapt backwards even as an immense figure covered in shaggy brown-black fur lunged, glittering crystal claws cleaving the door into four pieces and gouging cuts into the stone itself. An assassin? An assassin of my King's people?

The other paused in the doorway, his surprise having been ruined. "Quick you are, abomination."

"I have lived long enough to learn speed," he answered, feeling the hunger and rage rising within him. Oh, it has been long since I killed, and far longer since I killed one of them. "What fool are you, who tries to murder me within my own stronghold?"

"Stronghold." Contempt dripped from the word. "One disgusting mistake surrounded by prey and servants. But yes, I will give you my name. I am Morinavir, and to me is given the honor of cleansing the universe."

Raiagamor shifted now into his own true form, and could now stare with hungry humor down into the eyes of his opponent. "This 'mistake' is favored of the Mother and tolerated, if not loved, by the King."

Morinavir snarled, and there was a brief passage of claw and tooth; furniture shattered, walls were cut, but no blood drawn, no souls ripped – though Raiaga felt the tug on his essence, and drew close to the essence of his foe, before they parted. "We are aware. We are also aware of what you do here."

Raiaga laughed; the amusement blunted his rage for a moment. "Are you? I think you have not the first idea of what I am doing here. But now I know you fear what I am doing. You fear the worst of all: that the King may recognize me, and set me up above all but the Elders themselves!"

"That will never happen!"

The Great Wolf closed on him in earnest, and Raiagamor found he was fighting for his life. Morinavir was no Elder, but he was old, old enough to have controlled his spirit to the point that even Raiaga had not sensed his approach, old enough to have steeped himself in the ways of combat for perhaps even longer than Raiagamor.

But he fights me as a Wolf, Raiagamor thought with rising hope, as each of them inflicted cuts on the other, and he began to read the other's patterns. For all they call me 'abomination' and 'monster' and 'mistake', still in the end they think I am like them. That is why they hate and fear me; because if I am like them, I may be no mistake.

     Yet I am not one of them.

     I am better than they are.

Claws blocked claws, legs slashed out but failed to rip through flesh and soul, mouths snarled but could find no safe place to bite. Raiga was being driven back, having to duck away just a little more often than his opponent, slowly but inexorably finding himself approaching a corner, a part of his apartment built into the living rock of the mountain.

Then he was in the corner, and his elbow bumped the stone at just the wrong moment – and a taloned hand flashed past his guard, long glittering diamond claws aimed straight for his heart.

The impact slammed him into the wall, but far worse was the result for his opponent, as Morinavir's claws shattered.

The Great Wolf staggered back, agony clear on his savage face. "Wh… what?"

Raiagamor shrugged off his robe, revealing the shining metal covering much of his left breast. "I drew your energy out as your claws neared me, making them naught but tough crystal indeed – but then they struck upon this, of krellin mined from the Khalals, and were broken."

Smiling, he lunged forward now and struck off the other's right arm, rending the spirit and swallowing the energies of a Great Wolf. "How ironic that you struck the center of one of my secrets – and yet, even had your strike gone true, it would not have slain me, for what I am is something beyond you."

The other managed to drive his claws home in Raiagamor's thigh, but Raiaga merely winced, and caught the clawed hand, held it there, watched his opponent as his eyes widened in realization, feeling his life-force being consumed, his own claws serving as conduits.

"Only two ways can I be slain, little assassin," he snarled, smiling and raging at the same time. "Only two, and you have brought neither. The first to be so strong with the Hunger that you can surpass my own; that is given only to the Elders, our Queen, and our King.

Morinavir sagged down, and Raiaga remembered a similar expression of shock and horror on Ares' face, so long ago. "And the second? Too late to learn it."

With a single effort he tore the other's spirit from his body, and consumed it entirely.

The massive, shaggy form fell heavily and did not move.

Energy flowed into him, and he laughed, his rage now completely dissipated in triumph and power. Send me more assassins, my jealous and fearful lesser siblings! Send them all! You will but make me a thousand times stronger!

His hunger for power almost sated, he put back on his robe and went to satisfy the merely mortal cravings, leaving the assassin's corpse behind.

 

 

The post GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 14 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 13

They've got a problem, so they're calling in a consultant...

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Chapter 13.

It was not, Victoria admitted to herself, a sufficiently dramatic method of invoking a legend. Urelle simply gazed with full concentration into the Lens, a small girl with her black hair hanging in her face, staring intently at a little crystal object barely larger than her pinky nail. Faint glimmers came from it, so faint that she could not be sure it wasn’t merely reflection from the light-orbs in the room. Then she spoke the single word: "Arisia."

The Lens flared up with a brilliant polychromatic refulgence that was nearly a solid thing, a shining, shifting rainbow of nigh-living light that enveloped the entire bed on which Urelle sat, then filled the world with spectral luminance.

When the light faded, the Wanderer was there.

He is… different, Victoria thought.

In appearance he was little changed; the light blond hair, the extremely fair skin, the piercingly blue eyes, the black cloak clasped with silver at the throat, the dark clothing with hints of strange, squarish armor similar to Ingram's beneath, and the tall, elaborately enruned Staff of Stars crowned with its blue-white glowing crystal within the twined cage of metal.

But his pose and expression were different; he stood as one ready for combat, Staff raised, the other hand poised. A long sword of unknown design was sheathed at his side, and about his body flickered the light of mystic defenses. Though he still looked as human as ever, there was about him a sense of power and peril greater than anything Victoria had yet encountered, save perhaps her momentary contact with Myrionar itself.

That gaze flashed about the room, taking in the entire situation – and abruptly the man in front of them was the same relaxed, faintly smiling Wanderer they had met in his fortress, months before. "Well, that's a surprise," he said. "A pleasant one, but still a surprise. I'd expected to be called when you were in some terrible danger."

"Not a danger, exactly," Urelle said, apology strong in her voice, "and I hope you won't think it's wasted the Lens' power, but… we have a problem we can't solve."

"Well, whether it's a waste … we'll see, after I hear about your problem." He glanced around, his fingers moving casually through arcane symbology. "Well, the Freehold. Okay, then your problem's something that can't be solved by hitting it harder, anyway. So tell me."

Quickly – with some interjections by Victoria herself, Ingram, and Quester – they summarized their journey here, Urelle's testing, and their sudden realization of Urelle and Victoria's nature, and what it seemed to imply about their entire quest. "So… I guess you understand now, right?" Urelle finished.

The Wanderer sat down slowly on one of the chairs, the Staff of Stars floating away to lean in a corner. The young-looking face suddenly flashed out a grin that grew wider, then became a chuckle, and finally a full-fledged laugh.

"It's not that funny!"

"Oh, it's easily that funny if you've got my perspective, Urelle," he said. "Being funny doesn't mean it's not also serious, and believe me, I'm taking this very seriously."

He bowed deeply to her. "And a Salandaras, now, there's a name I've never imagined as one that would be attached to an apprentice of mine. I respect them immensely – considering their average size, it's kind of hard to respect them any other way – but mages, they generally ain't. I hope you realize the honor you've earned."

"I think so," Urelle said after a moment, looking to Victoria.

"We all appreciate it, perhaps more seeing what a terrible price she had to pay to attain that honor," Victoria said. "But if we are stopped here, it becomes little more than an honor."

"Do not underestimate that honor, any of you. The Salandaras are a power unto themselves, and to be accepted as one of them is to have that power as your own." The lopsided smile flashed out again. "But still, I know, all the power and honor doesn't matter much if you can't get where you all have to go."

"So?" From her interactions with the Wanderer, she had come to grasp that he was a man of paradoxes – immensely ancient, possessed of fantastic breadth and depth of knowledge that only someone literal ages old could have… and sometimes with the maturity and sense of melodrama of a boy scarce older than Ingram. "Have you any answers to our questions? Will Urelle suddenly become Athena if she enters Aegeia? Is Ingram's guess about the entire situation correct? If Urelle is chosen by Athena, does it mean my… does it mean Urelle is suddenly no longer… herself?"

She realized her phrasing had become more… personal than she intended, but despite a brief twinkle in his eyes, the Wanderer showed no notice. And really… why should I pretend? "Because that is something I will not countenance, Wanderer. I bore no children of my own, but Urelle is nevertheless my daughter, as surely as I live."

Urelle's eyes filled with tears and she reached out and gripped Victoria's hand tightly; she felt Quester's pleased reaction, and saw Ingram smile.

"No one who had seen you together for even a few minutes would think anything else," the Wanderer said. "And I can't blame you. No matter how really great it would be to have an incarnate goddess on your side, it'd still suck for that to cost you a friend. Read a book that had an ending like that, it was a really unpleasant jolt. Lot worse to have happen in real life.

"So, to address your questions… let me think. And do a little research."

So saying, the Wanderer reached into his pack and pulled out several books – blowing the dust off of one. "Man, that one has been in there a while."

Ingram leaned forward. "Wait… that's the Camp-Bel sigil on that one! And that other one… that's Athena! Those are sacred!"

"Whoa! Whoa!" the Wanderer tumbled back as Ingram tried to snatch the books out of his hand.

"Ingram! Control yourself!" Victoria snapped, though she could sense, through the link, the emotions driving the boy.

Ingram hesitated for an instant, giving Quester a chance to drag him back.

"Holy Jebus, give a guy a chance to explain before you try to grab his books!" the Wanderer said. "I was given these, one by the then-Captain, the other by one of the God-Warriors some Cycles ago – the Lady knew I collect useful info and this was my reward for helping the right side out a bit. Yes, they're probably sacred books for your people, but they're my sacred books, given me by the people they're sacred to, so sorry, I'm keeping them."

Ingram flushed visibly, then bowed. "My apologies, sir. That was… rude, uncalled for, and stupid."

"No one's hurt, it's fine. Just let me work now."

For a while they all waited, silence broken only by the turning of pages and the occasional murmur of some kind of spell.

I'm feeling … kind of disappointed, Ingram thought to them.

In what way? Quester's thoughts were genuinely curious.

Oh, I know what Ingram means. It's kinda… well, no, really silly, but I think both of us expected the Wanderer to just, you know, answer everything.

     He is, after all, still a human being, Victoria reminded them. Ancient, and peculiar, I will grant you. But he himself emphasized that while he could sometimes play in the 'Great Game,' he was still more one of us than a cosmic power. I am afraid he has the same limits as most of us, just much more experience.

I know that, Auntie. I just… expected more.

"No help for it," the Wanderer said, his voice startling in the former silence. "I've got part of your answer, but I've got to get a consultant for the rest."

"A… consultant?"

"Yeah, one of my colleagues who knows a lot more about specifics of how the gods and such work. Everyone stand clear."

Assured they were well away, the Wanderer waved the Staff and a complex magical circle appeared in shimmering light on the polished floorboards of the room. Victoria could only read small parts of the symbology, but it was clearly one of considerable power.

The words the Wanderer intoned then were of no language Victoria had ever heard; it was rhythmic, musical, with some hints of pronunciation and emphasis that sometimes echoed the sonorous sound of Ancient Sauran, but with the flow that only a truly human language could have for a human speaker. He repeated the same chant three times, four, five…

Upon the seventh repetition, a seven-pointed star flared into existence about the circle, and within the circle a huge shadowy shape appeared, tall and forbidding, vaguely human in outline but so dim and blurred that Victoria could make out little else except that its head seemed broad and flattened, the body nigh-shapeless or perhaps clothed in robes. A deep voice echoed faintly from the wraithlike shape.

The Wanderer replied, still in that unknown language; for a few minutes, the two conversed, the Wanderer's tone becoming more insistent. Finally, he broke into common speech. "Okay, you need to actually come here!"

There was a shockwave of displaced air and – with not even a moment's transition – the shadowy form solidified into full reality.

It was a man, Victoria realized now – an extraordinarily tall man, over seven feet in height, wearing a strange five-sided hat, gripping a staff even more elaborate in design than the Staff of Stars, wearing robes of brown and gray and blue. "Wanderer, I am currently – by Torline's soul, how dare you?"

"Shut up, you meddling old fraud, this is right smack-dab in the middle of your bailiwick, and this will go a lot faster if you take a look around in person."

The other's hand – a powerful, huge hand, fully in proportion to the figure's height – gripped his staff so tightly the knuckles went white. "You… child! I was on the front lines of the battle!"

"They'll just think you teleported to go mess things up somewhere else. And do you want me to remind you of the time that you –"

"Enough! Very well."

The Wanderer, only partially hiding a triumphant grin, turned to the rest of them. "Allow me to introduce the possibly even more legendary than me wizard, Konstantin Khoros."

Victoria felt a chill across her whole body and gripped her hands together, seeking a trivial comfort. The younger members of their group might know only the name, but she had heard tales of the ancient soul-mage from Toron and others during her adventures. On the side of the Light Khoros might be… but he was one of deep maneuverings and hard choices, and whenever he appeared, danger and disaster were never far behind.

The Wanderer continued, either oblivious to her reaction or simply ignoring it. "Khoros, I know you know who everyone is already, but that extremely distinguished woman is Lady Victoria Vantage, the bandaged girl in the bed is Urelle Vantage – my apprentice," he added, causing an intake of breath from Khoros, "the lavender-haired boy is Ingram Camp-Bel, and the Iriistiik is called Quester."

Khoros bowed briefly to them, then rose. "An honor to meet you all," he said in that startlingly deep voice. Victoria noted that despite the illumination, Khoros' face remained in shadow at all times; hints of expression were visible, but no detail. "I apologize for the unseemly conflict. I should have expressed my displeasure later, privately.

"Now," he went on, "I understand what you are asking, Wanderer. I will first verify what I suspect."

The staff in his hand chimed and gold-crystal light pulsed out from it in concentric circles like ripples on a pond.

The light… tingled. It was a wave of sparks and snowflakes, kissing the skin with melting chill and sharp warmth all at once, soaking into her with the bite of a high-mountain wind and the comfort of a long-awaited bath; at the same time, she heard whispers of words she could not understand, and a deep song that resonated in her heart and soul.

For an instant she saw, not bodies, but light. Khoros was a blinding sun wrapped in dark mist; the Wanderer, a dancing skein of rainbow gems that receded into infinity in all directions.

Where Urelle lay there was a girl of crystal, of limitless complexity, each facet made of innumerable others, every edge limned with violet fire, every plane seething with the colors of eternity. Standing next to her, Ingram Camp-Bel was a blazing statue of gold behind smoked glass, and Quester was a sphere of emerald luminance that touched somehow upon the rest of them while remaining, at the same time, itself; a point of pure white, more intense than a dozen suns, burned at the very core of the emerald globe.

The vision ended before she thought to look at herself.

Khoros' shrouded face surveyed them slowly, then he nodded, the hat with its unknown symbols emphasizing the motion. "Not entirely unexpected, but it is still good to be certain. Now, pardon me for a few moments, as I must also ascertain certain things about the state of Aegeia and the gods."

Ingram narrowed his gaze. "And you can do that from here, through the barrier?"

"Through it… not precisely. Past it, yes, in something of the manner in which you will have to enter, though – as I need not travel thence physically, and have rather more knowledge and experience, it will be done more quickly and will seem easier. Now please, a moment of peace."

Khoros did not make a circle on the floor; instead, he held his staff vertical before him with his right hand, while the left sketched complex mystical symbols and formulae in the air, in streaks of blue-white fire. Victoria noted Urelle leaning forward, attention utterly focused on following the ancient magician's every move.

 

An aura of that same blue-white fire enveloped the soul-mage, shimmering and rippling like burning water; again, Victoria had the impression of voices speaking words she could not catch.

Long moments went by before Khoros let his staff sink to rest on the floor and the luminous aura faded. "So. I believe I can answer your questions.

"First and foremost, no, none of you will find yourselves suddenly possessed by the essence of a god – or, I would expect, anything else – upon entering Aegeia. Your enemy – who is surprisingly closed to me; I can distinguish nothing save only to confirm your suspicion that he is not, in fact, Ares – has expended a great deal of effort and subtle craft to ensure that it is virtually impossible for Athena to be reborn."

Ingram went so pale that Victoria was afraid he would faint; he did sway unsteadily before Quester caught his arm. "Impossible?"

"I said virtually impossible, but yes. His intentions are fairly obvious, even though I can, as I said, distinguish little of his true nature or the mechanisms he is employing. He attempts to subvert the Cycle and, by ensuring that Athena cannot appear at the requisite time, break the Cycle."

"No! That would be… that would be a complete disaster! Athena and the Cycle –"

"I assure you, young Ingram, I am at least as aware as you are of the consequences. It is the importance of these things that justifies the time and energies I am expending in talking with you, here, when a few thousand miles from here the armies of the Sauran King are in pitched battle with the forces of Kerlamion and his accursed City."

"Wait," said Urelle. "Sir, if you could so quickly divine the situation within Aegeia, could you not then at least send us through the barrier yourself?"

"Could I? Yes; I expect that you will find a way through on your own, and thus I would be certain that I could do it. However, what is swiftly – though not easily – accomplished with pure magic and divinations is not done nearly that quickly with living persons, physical beings that must be moved through the barrier. As an analogy, you have spells that will easily enhance your sight and hearing; this does not eliminate the difficulty of escaping a locked room, despite being able to hear and see what passes beyond that room."

Victoria caught both Khoros and the Wanderer in her gaze. "What else can you do? I admit it is useful to know that we can move forward without risking my… Urelle's self, and possibly to know the general goal of our adversary…"

"Hey, the first bit was the main concern, right?" the Wanderer pointed out.

"Not now," Ingram said, shock and horror still evident on his face. "If Athena can't be reborn, then the Cycle is over. So what's the virtually part of your 'virtually impossible'? We have to know that."

Khoros sighed. "Yes, you do. Yet I cannot give you a detailed answer. All my divinations tell me is that your enemy has, first, prevented the rebirth of Athena in the normal fashion. Second, has produced a very convincing false Athena so that none will suspect the problem even exists."

"By the Mother…" buzzed Quester. "He can not only imitate one god successfully, but also make another false god?"

"So it would seem. But! While your enemy has closed off most routes, there remains one possibility to awaken Athena. I cannot tell the details, but I know that it will require some one of a very few symbols or artifacts of her worship, and it will require some very specific conditions. On the positive side, I know that more than one of you could, under the right circumstances, meet those conditions. It is also possible you will meet someone else who will be an appropriate candidate.

"And," Khoros went on, "your group's existence is not accident or coincidence. If there is indeed 'destiny' at work, it guides you to the confrontation. I must believe that – if you win through – it may also help guide you to the solution to this mystery."

He surveyed the group again. "I will also caution all of you against assumptions. The greatest danger is the falsehood that you believe without realizing you believe it. Whatever your enemy may be, he is a master at manipulating appearances, at cloaking a vile truth within an obvious lie that no one questions. The fact that he can do this with the gods and not have his lie revealed by the priests? This tells us a great deal – most importantly, that he will prefer to hide even his vulnerabilities with assumptions; in some fashion they will be plain to see, yet passed over."

The Wanderer grinned, a startling flash of optimism. "But you've got one big advantage; you're on the right side."

"Yes," agreed Khoros. "True in more ways than they know. Oh, one other fact that may be of some comfort: Ingram's impression is correct. Those who become the vessels of the gods are not erased, not turned into duplicates of some particular incarnation of the god. They retain their selves, even while also being connected to the essence of Athena or whatever other god they might be.

"On the other hand, it is also true to say they will not remain the 'self' they were before the incarnation. The access to the knowledge and history and spirit of Athena will change any who suddenly acquire them. Yet… we are, none of us, who we were before any particular significant event. Life changes us. You know this well, Lady Victoria."

"Yes," she admitted after a moment's hesitation. "But is there no difference?"

"In degree, perhaps. It is each person's decision as to what degree of change is acceptable." Khoros turned and bowed to the Wanderer. "My apologies again. You were correct in choosing to bring me."

"Don't worry about it; I should've been more polite about asking. It's not like another ten seconds would've made any difference today. Want me to send you back?"

"At this point?" Khoros hesitated. "Ahh. Yes, send me back… to a point one hundred fifty yards east and two hundred south of my prior position."

"By your command," the Wanderer said in a peculiarly metallic voice, then grinned. "Good luck, and keep your head way down."

The Wanderer brought his staff down three times; upon the third strike, a blaze of gold and blue enveloped Khoros, and the huge mage vanished.

"Well," the Wanderer said, "That at least got us the answers you really need. You can move forward now, yes?"

"Yes," Ingram said, his color having finally returned to normal. "At least we can do that."

The Wanderer put his hand on Ingram's shoulder; Victoria noted how pale the Wanderer was, even next to Ingram's skin, which was far lighter than hers or Kyri's. "Look, Ingram, don't worry too much. I know the idea of the Cycle ending is scary, and possibly disastrous, but have some faith. The gods are all playing this game, and that means there's plenty in your corner too."

Ingram's gaze searched the Wanderer's crystal-blue eyes for a moment, then the young boy managed a smile. "All right. Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome, Ingram." He spun his staff in a lazy circle. "I've got to get moving myself; I wasn't in a battle at the time you called, but I do have things I have to finish."

"Will you… I mean, is this used up?" Urelle asked, holding up the tiny Lens.

The Wanderer smiled. "Not yet. Good for one, maybe two, more shots. You made a good call using this one; trust yourself to use it when the right time comes."

"Will it work through Athena's Shield?" Quester asked, antennae inclined in a quizzical manner. "Given that it bars the gods…?"

"Ha! First, remember that I'm the guy that gets to do the things no one else can. But more seriously, yes, because you have the Lens with you as you travel to Aegeia. Your… location trace, for lack of a better term, tells the Lens and me how to get through the Shield, by following your own path. Not that I'm going to physically follow the path, that is, it's more that I know what the sequence of locations in space-time-dimension is that corresponds to a passage to Aegeia."

Victoria could mostly follow that; she wasn't sure that Ingram did. Urelle probably understood more than Victoria. Quester's face was, of course, hard to read. "But we can only pass through because we have a Salandaras with us, as I understand it."

"Me and the Salandaras go way back. I'll pass, don't worry." He gave a bow, with a flourish of his cape, and vanished in a flash of smoke and flame.

"We need to get ready!" Urelle started to slide out of the bed – then almost fell to the floor as her knees gave out.

"You need to stay in bed, young lady!" Victoria snapped, feeling an unreasonably intense worry at the sight. "Until you are recovered from your ordeal, we are not moving one inch. And given what you went through, that will be a day or three even now."

"She's right," Ingram said, with an intensity that made Victoria smile inside, and took Urelle's hand. "You stay right there until you're all better."

Urelle's own smile flashed out.

Quester's mindvoice echoed in Victoria's head with gentle humor. It seems to me that she just became all better.

 

 

The post GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 13 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 12

So, Urelle had -- just barely -- survived...

-----

 

 

Chapter 12.

"I think," Quester said, trying to balance gentleness and firmness, "it would be good if you could explain what happened yesterday, when you assisted Frederic."

Urelle looked up from her bed, and Ingram, who was sitting in a chair nearby, glanced to Quester and Victoria. "What happened yesterday?" she asked.

Ingram's brows drew down. "Frederic encountered… difficulty in healing you." The subtle tightness in his voice echoed the fears Quester felt in him, the memory of seeing the young Vantage nigh-dead before them. "He said he needed a … connection to something greater than his magics. I thought about calling Berenike, but before I could, Victoria offered her hand… and somehow that was enough." He looked to Victoria. "She's going to be fine, and that's all I need to know. You don't have to explain anything to me."

Victoria looked around the room, then the right side of her mouth turned up in a half-smile. "It is true that I do not have to," she said after a moment, "but Quester is, I think, right. It would be good for us to have few secrets of import from each other." In the mindspeech, she added, and after all, how well can we hide secrets if we can speak by thoughts? Eventually, I suspect, anything you dwell upon will come out, or at least hint at its nature.

"That is perhaps true," Quester admitted. "But as you are not of the Iriistiik, and accustomed to being alone in your thoughts, perhaps not quite so much as you might think."

"Still… yes, I think you are correct, Quester." A swift procession of emotions flickered like shadows across her face; worry, pride, disbelief, awe, tenderness. "In all honesty, though I knew this secret before, it was something in the manner of a test that I offered my aid to Frederic. I do not think I entirely believed it before then."

"Well, what is it, Auntie?" Urelle said, after a moment's silence.

Victoria shook her head, smiling with that same subtle incredulity; a strand of her black-and-white hair waved, accentuating the motion. "Well… I suppose there's no point in trying to lead up to it. Kyri – your sister Kyri – is Myrionar."

Quester tried to make sense of this fantastic statement, and couldn't. But his, and Ingram's, confusion was nothing compared to Urelle's.

"Wha… Auntie, what?"

"I know precisely what you are feeling, Urelle. But I also know precisely what I am saying. You all recall when we first encountered the Wanderer? How I pointed out that anyone could claim to be a legend, but that I required proof?"

Urelle nodded. "Yes. He said you should pray to Myrionar, and that Myrionar would answer. And when you came back, you said you had been answered, and that this was indeed the Wanderer."

"Yes," Ingram said, brow furrowing again. "And I remember both Quester and I thought you looked… stunned, behind your usual veteran Adventurer face."

"Urelle undoubtedly would have seen the same thing, if the idea of studying with the Wanderer hadn't rather distracted her," Victoria agreed. "Then here is what happened: Myrionar did answer my prayers. Myrionar spoke to me. And It spoke in Kyri's voice."

They stared incredulously at her. Then Quester said, "But – Lady Vantage – this is, after all, a god. I do not doubt that Shargamor or Athena or Terian, or any of them, could speak in the voice of anyone they chose."

"Undoubtedly, Quester," she said, the half-smile still on her face. "But the voice came with the absolute conviction that this was the true voice of Myrionar. And my subsequent conversation with the Wanderer verified it. Kyri is – will become… did become Myrionar. All at once, so to speak."

Quester tried to make sense of this. The god Myrionar had existed for a very long time; after he and Ingram had become employees and, later, friends of the Vantages, Quester had done some studying of their faith, assuming that it would held him understand these friends just as understanding Ingram's faith had aided in understanding the young Camp-Bel. There were some traces indicating that Myrionar had existed many Chaoswars back. Yet Kyri Vantage was young, only a few years older than Urelle; how could she be Myrionar?

Abruptly, Ingram began laughing. "Oh, now it makes sense!"

All three of them stared at Ingram. "I must say that I cannot see how this… unique situation can make sense of anything," Quester said finally.

"Oh, it's all simple, it's a closed time-loop. Some of the Founder's writings talked about this, although it was usually in the context of ancient stories. No, what makes sense now is the 'Vantage Strength'. Kyri becomes Myrionar, and somehow has to go back in history to whenever Myrionar first shows up. But she has to make sure that cycle keeps happening, right? So she has to make sure that the Vantage line shows up…"

"… and since they're her family, they need that touch of godspower that gives them the strength," Victoria finished. "Yes. Yes, that is obvious now." She shook her head again, smiling. "So we've been worshipping our own family. Perhaps we are descended of Kyri, somehow."

"But becoming a god… that's got to be something really difficult," Urelle put in after a moment. "So, that means she has to let all the bad things happen."

Victoria closed her eyes. "Oh, Balance, of course. By all that is, Kyri, how it must hurt, even as a god. The very course of events that made you … you cannot change. Or Myrionar will never exist, and all the good you have do will never come to pass."

Thinking about that terrible concept, and then about their journey, triggered another thought. "I think I understand something else, too."

"What, Quester?" asked Ingram.

"Well… perhaps. We have wondered why our opponents at times seemed confused as to the nature of their target, and especially as to why, instead of you, they appear to be focused on Urelle – or, perhaps, Victoria."

Ingram's eyes widened. "No. Yes. By Athena, yes. It's Urelle. But Victoria's connected to her by the same power. That's why it's confused."

"Would you explain, Ingram?" Victoria asked, polite steel in the words.

"Oh! Sorry. Look, if we're dealing with either a crazy or a fake Ares, either way they've probably done their best to wipe out all of the possible candidates for Athena, or any of the other gods, to incarnate. We've never known what's involved in the selection; but now it seems awfully likely that it's bloodline – incarnate gods have to come from someone who's either been prepared to survive the godspower, or," he looked at Urelle and Victoria, "are born with a connection to it."

"I am not becoming any kind of god!" Urelle said, as firmly as her still-recovering body would let her.

Ingram sighed and looked down. "You already risked everything, I'm not asking you to risk any more."

Quester studied his friends and sensed, delicately, the thoughts and feelings radiating from them. "Urelle, I do not believe your sister planned to become one, either."

"Not the same thing," Victoria said sharply. "If we understand this at all… Kyri has always been Myrionar, in a sense. Myrionar was never anyone else, although It took on the guise It wears for the sake of the justice Kyri fought for. This Athena is her own god, not any of her worshippers."

Quester turned his head towards his friend. "Ingram?"

Ingram shrugged. "I can't argue it directly, Victoria. There was no incarnate Athena in my lifetime. But I have read the histories, pretty carefully. I think… and I admit, it's just my own impression, but I think that the gods don't wipe out the person they incarnate to. She sort of chooses someone who fits with being Athena, and makes them… more of who they are. Yeah, they'll get Athena's knowledge and power, but they're not erased."

"Ingram, the 'knowledge and power' of something that's lived through dozens of Cycles… I couldn't possibly be the same person after I got that!"

"No." Ingram bit his lip. "And I wouldn't ask you to do that."

Urelle stared at him, then smiled. "I know you wouldn't. But now I'm worried about going to Aegeia. Am I going to suddenly just turn into this incarnate goddess as soon as I enter?"

Ingram stared at her, and Quester could feel the conflicting worries churning within his friend. Ingram's oath made it imperative that he return, help his Clan, stop Ares. Yet Ingram's personal attachment – an intense affection, perhaps more that Quester could not precisely sort out – to Urelle was equally powerful. He could not risk his mission, yet nor could he risk Urelle.

And Ingram could not move forward on his mission without Urelle. Even if another Salandaras were willing to lead them, Quester could not imagine that they could simply walk through the Seal. It would take a skilled master of magic to take advantage of the single and singular flaw in the otherwise perfect barrier.

There was silence in the room for several moments.

Victoria shifted, and then looked sharply towards Urelle. "We need answers, it would seem, and the answers lie beyond us."

Urelle looked up; for a moment, Quester saw only puzzlement on her face, but then her eyes widened. "But… I thought that should be saved for desperate moments."

Ingram caught on at the same moment Quester realized what they were talking about. "Wait, no, we shouldn't call him over such a…" he trailed off.

Victoria's eyebrow had lifted, and a small, cutting smile appeared as Ingram stopped. "You were going to say 'trivial matter' or something of the sort, I suppose?"

Ingram nodded, face clearly reddened.

"Well, at least you had the sense to realize your mistake. This is vital. We have questions that must be answered, or we cannot move forward. Yes?"

Ingram exchanged glances with Urelle, and both nodded. "Yes."

"And none of us believe those answers can be found here, yes?"

Quester thought on it, but he agreed with that conclusion. If Ingram didn't know how the incarnations worked, it was highly doubtful the Salandaras would… and these were not ordinary times, in any case. The rules might have changed. "Yes. I do not believe those answers are here," he said, and saw the younger two nod.

"Then we are in need of some means of resolving our questions, or our mission – your mission, Ingram, which has become ours – fails here, and Urelle's efforts truly were for nothing."

Ingram muttered a curse under his breath.

Quester sketched a bow towards the girl in her bed. "Urelle? Would you be willing to try?"

Urelle hesitated, her storm-gray eyes distant. But after a few moments, she nodded. "I think Auntie's right. We don't have any way to answer these questions, but if anyone can, it's him."

She gestured towards the closet where her clothing hung, and a tiny glittering object flew to her hand. She stared down at it, and Quester could feel her tension rising, a tension not unmixed with excitement and anticipation. "I will try to call the Wanderer."

 

 

The post GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 12 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 11

Urelle was inside the Crucible, and all her friends can do is wait... and hope.

-----

 

Chapter 11.

"How long do we wait?" Ingram heard himself demanding again.

"As long as we must," Victoria responded from the dimness of the pre-dawn.

Even without more light, Ingram could see how exhausted Victoria was, dark circles beneath her eyes, the eyelids heavy, the mouth bracketed with lines of worry and weariness. I look no better, probably. It's been more than two days.

Quester was sleeping, at least; he could feel the vagueness of presence that told him his friend was not awake and alert. But neither Ingram nor Victoria had been able to rest much. "But shouldn't she have come out by now?"

"It is somewhat worrisome," Frederic's voice answered from behind them. "But many have taken days to pass the Crucible."

"How do you know when to stop watching?" Victoria asked quietly, gazing at the door to the Crucible of Children, gray and closed as it had been since Urelle had entered.

"When the door opens," Frederic said after a pause. "Either the candidate is there, and in passing through that doorway becomes a Salandaras in truth, or no one waits behind the door… and someone must go inside to retrieve the one who failed." His voice was soft, but Ingram could hear the sadness within, and the anger.

"Is there no way to change this?" Victoria asked. "No way for the Salandaras to stop sending their children into a deadly gantlet?"

"None that has been revealed to them, to their allies, or to me, Lady Victoria," Frederic answered. "Not without destroying that which they are, and perhaps destroying all they have built upon being who they are. We do not even know, as we said, the identities of the two beings who clashed over the destiny of their ancestor, nor whatever power it is who is their patron now. Those three, together, might do so, but without knowing who and what they are, it seems impossible to me that an acceptable ending might be made of this."

He shook his head. "And so the children must go, beloved and feared for… sometimes never to return."

Ingram shuddered. I wish I could have done this. It's my job as a Camp-Bel, to take these burdens and risks upon myself, not put them onto others. But that had not been an option.

So now he sat, and watched an unmoving gray door, and felt acid and tension within his gut.

The light brightened, and suddenly a brilliant ray of sun washed across the scene, touching everything with ruddy gold light. Ingram blinked.

Then he realized that the gray doorway had gone black. It was no longer closed, but open.

And there was no figure visible in the doorway.

"Athena, no…" he whispered, horror spreading in an icy constricting wave from his heart throughout his body. "No."

Victoria gasped and sagged to the ground, gaze fixed on the dark, empty archway, hands covering her mouth to hold in a mother's screams. Quester's mind was shadowed and the Iriistiik's head sank, both his sets of arms sagging.

Ingram forced himself to stand. She died for me. For everything that no longer matters, because I don't think I care for the mission one bit now. But I will find her and bring her out into the mocking sunlight.

     I won't let anyone else be the one to find her inside this death trap.

As he started for the doorway, Druyar Salandaras bellowed, "STOP!"

He paused, glaring back at the huge warrior, who was also staring intensely at the entrance to the Crucible. "Why?"

"Is not yet over."

He whirled back, seeing Victoria rising to her feet, and only then did he see it. A slight movement, from a tiny shape in dark clothes, collapsed at the very threshold of the door. "URELLE!"

Frederic caught him as he sprinted forward, Druyar doing the same to Victoria. Quester was there now, great faceted eyes taking in the scene, only hesitating when he saw the desperation with which his two friends were being restrained.

"No!" Druyar said, and his voice was hammered iron. "Not over! No help! She must cross threshold herself! Do not undo all she has done!"

That last was the only thing anyone could have said to have stopped him – or, he was certain, Victoria and Quester. For Urelle moved with the slowness of one not merely exhausted, but wounded, dying, with perhaps minutes remaining and only their iron will driving them forward. Neither he nor her aunt could have failed to go to her… if it were not for the fact that they would then make all that Urelle had done pointless.

"Okay. Okay. We'll stay out of it until she crosses the threshold," Ingram managed to grind out. He saw Victoria nod, Quester's head dip. "We promise. But let us go closer. Be as close as we can."

Frederic's grip on his arms eased, and Ingram hurried forward, Victoria at his side.

Had they not promised, Ingram wasn't sure he could have stopped himself. For he had never seen Urelle so badly injured.

A makeshift tourniquet gripped her swollen left leg above a vicious wound in her calf. Blood caked the leg, which was also leaking pus. Urelle's face was smeared with blood and other things in a streaked red-black-yellow pattern of filth, and even her dark skin seemed both paler and darker, with hints of hectic red on her cheeks. One hand gripped a battered length of metal, jamming one end into the stone to help drag herself forward. There were burns on her clothing and her hands, and scorch marks on her face. Her eyes stared intensely, looking only in front of her, a few feet before her, and Ingram knew she was utterly unaware of anything except the goal that lay before her, such a short distance away.

A gasping grunt, and she dragged herself another six inches forward; her other leg pushed, but it, too, was not uninjured; the ankle was puffed to nearly twice its normal size. The one with the tourniquet did not move at all, dead weight that was simply impeding her progress. Her lips bled, as though she'd bitten them in her pain.

But she extended her arms again, anchored herself, dragged forward. Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes, and Ingram felt his own splashing onto his clenched fists, hearing her agonized gasps and knowing he could do nothing to help her… or all this pain would be for naught.

Another six inches. Another, and her feet were near the threshold. She gave a whine and a growl, inhuman in their intensity, and pulled herself forward once more… and her feet slid past the border of the entranceway. "It is done." Druyar said, sadness mingling with satisfaction in his voice.

And - from where, Ingram could not say – a phantom voice whispered "And will beyond that of iron… well enough, little one."

Ingram and Victoria were instantly near her. "Urelle, Urelle, you did it, you did it, understand us? It's okay, we're going to help you now."

Her eyes refocused, slid past Victoria, fixed on his face, looked into his own, and those cracked, bleeding lips curved up. "It's… okay now… Ingram…" she whispered.

Then her head dropped to the pavement and the metal rod, so fiercely held, tumbled from fingers gone limp.

"NO!"

"Calm yourself!" Frederic snapped. "She is not dead – not quite – and by Shargamor and the Water of Life, she will not die if I can help it."

The Guardian of Nature laid his hand on Urelle's, and instantly, deep, rippling green light flowed across the girl's form. "Unloose that tourniquet," Frederic said, and Druyar bent and did so with the smoothness of one long accustomed to following this man's directions. "Ah," Frederic said distantly, "both infection and poison. A cruel combination. The leg itself may have passed the point of salvage."

No! Ingram breathed the word.

"Can it not be restored, if severed clean?" Victoria asked, her voice unnaturally calm.

"There are those who could do so," Frederic said. "None of them are here, however, and you have no luxury of time to seek one out. But I did say may. It is possible that I may still be able to help her body to defeat the forces that seek to destroy it."

"Do you need anything? Ingredients, healing draughts – Athena's Name, why didn't she use her own healing?"

"I have all I require for the moment," Frederic said. "As to why… I would have to guess that she could not. Her pack may have been sealed. Even her magic, perhaps, was no longer hers to command."

"Founder…" Ingram whispered, feeling the horrific weight of helplessness once more. It's like watching Victoria dying. Once again, I can do nothing to help!

All he could do was pray to Athena and Urelle's own Myrionar to help her.

The lines of concentration on Frederic's face, as he threw his powers and those of Shargamor against the terrible injuries Urelle had sustained, were also hauntingly familiar. The Wanderer's face had looked the same.

Frederic sat there for long minutes, quietly intoning spells or prayers in a strange mixture of languages. Was Urelle's face relaxing, smoothing out? And if it was… was it because she was getting better, or because the end was approaching? Ingram swallowed, feeling dust and splinters of fear in his throat.

The rippling, leafy, emerald light danced up and down the girl's form, returning always to focus on the savage wound in her calf, from which blood was trickling, mixed with yellow-green corruption. Frederic was breathing faster now, and Ingram saw sweat standing out on the older man's brow, beginning to soak the neck of his famous White Robe. "Druyar," he said, strain evident despite an artificial lightness of tone, "I must say, your patron has angered me once more. There was no need for this."

Druyar bowed his head. "Not think so either, but she not listen to me."

"If Urelle dies," Ingram heard himself snarl from between gritted teeth, "your patron will by the Founder hear something from us!"

The golden-haired warrior raised his head and looked with stern sympathy into Ingram's eyes. "Was her choice. Was her risk. She want to help you." He sighed. "Know that hurts. But don't blame Her, Mistress of Twilight, Fortune. All Salandaras take risk." An aching sadness passed across the normally-cheerful features. "Me and sister, Daryana, we go in together. Take different paths. I come out. She carried out."

"How can you stand it?"

Druyar straightened. "Is part of who we are. Hear your story, yes? Why Camp-Bels die in training? Why God-Warrior training kill so many? Because is what must be." He gestured to Urelle. "Not want to see her die. Trust Guardian will heal. But if not? Soul is safe. She go where she belong."

"But she will have died for nothing!"

"No," Druyar said firmly. "She made it. She Salandaras now. She still alive. Made promise. If die, is now our promise."

It should have been wonderful news: Druyar – who right now was the Salandaras, the leader – was saying he took Urelle's oath as his own, that no matter what, one of the Salandaras would guide them to the Seal. But all that promise managed was a minuscule lightening, a feeling that it wouldn't all have been for naught. But, looking at Urelle's too-thin face, he couldn't bring himself to care.

"It is… very bad," Frederic gasped, still pouring the forest-jade power into Urelle's slender form. "There is a touch of something else, not mere magic, something greater, associated with all of this. I need a connection, something of our own, to combat this."

"But," Quester buzzed in puzzlement, "but are you not a holy man yourself? A Guardian is a servant and channel of Shargamor, yes?"

"Yes," he admitted, "but not directly. I gain the strength, the energy, from Shargamor's blessing, but it is not the power of the gods. Such is not for ordinary humans to channel. I need a touch of the true power, or something else that lies beyond the realm of the ordinary magic I wield."

Ingram's head came up. "Something connected to the gods?"

But before he could concentrate, could focus his desperation into the cry to call forth his oldest friend, he saw Victoria Vantage, with a peculiar expression, extend her hand. "Would this suffice?" she asked.

Frederic, confusion obvious, took her hand.

A faint shimmer showed about their hands, and to his surprise Ingram saw faint red-gold sparkles flowing over Urelle along with the leaf-green. Frederic stared, astounded, into Victoria's eyes. "But… I don't understand."

"It isn't necessary to understand – as long as it is enough."

"It… yes. Yes, it is. I feel a resonance between your … power and Urelle's. Perhaps the connection of mother to child, despite your surface relationship… but I feel the infection weakening. The poison begins to disperse, diluting in the flow of power and will. Urelle's spirit … her spirit is with us now, helping." Despite the sweat and strain on his face, Frederic smiled. "She will recover."

"Thank the Lady," Ingram heard himself say, and sank to the ground. The tears still trickled down his cheeks, but at last, for the first time in days, Ingram smiled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 11 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 10

Urelle was the only practical candidate... and now she must prove she is worthy to be a Salandaras.

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Chapter 10.

Urelle stared at the crescent of carven cylindrical columns before her, columns cut off in a manner that made them look like stalks of grass sheared off by an errant sword-stroke, and shivered. At the center of that crescent was a single dark, unadorned archway, ten feet high and wide.

The entrance to the Crucible of Children.

She glanced backward, saw the figures outlined against the dawn: the tall, angular shape of Quester, the broad crescents of Twin-Edged Fate over her aunt's shoulder, the tiny figure of Ingram watching tensely, and to the side, the simply robed form of Frederic next to the massive height and breadth of Druyar Salandaras. All of them watching.

And if I fail, Ingram's hope is gone.

No! His mindvoice showed he had heard her thought. Don't carry that around with you into the Crucible, Urelle! I … I'm more worried about you than my mission, okay?

Really?

Really. I mean… I'm terrified about what might be happening to Aegeia. My parents, my Clan, our countries. But I didn't travel with them through the Forest Sea, all the way to the Wanderer's Stronghold and the shore and back. You don't worry about me, or anyone but yourself. Understand?

She could feel a strange emphasis beneath his words, a current of thought that lent even greater weight to what he said. I understand, she answered, even though she didn't, not exactly.

"Hey," Druyar rumbled. "You doing that think-talk thing, yes? Remember, no doing that in Crucible. Just you, no one else, nothing else. Can't pass unless is all you. Right?"

"Yes, sir," she said. "Quester, can I … turn this off?"

"I can do so for you," Quester said. He advanced to her side. "Stand still for a moment."

The touch of his mind was not nearly so disquieting as it had been the first time, months ago, when the Iriistiik had first bonded them. There was a tingle, a chill – and suddenly the sense of the others near her was gone. She felt momentarily desolated, her heart itself gone cold. It's only been a few months… but I've already grown so accustomed to that connection.

She glanced at Quester as he moved off, and was abruptly seized with a powerful understanding, an aching empathic grasp of the depth of suffering Quester must have endured upon the loss of his Nest. I miss it terribly, after only a few months. He was born to such connections. Yet he has shown so little of the emptiness it must have visited upon him.

Urelle straightened and gave them all a smile. "See you in a while!"

She made herself walk steadily and calmly towards the entrance to the Crucible, gesturing with casual grace as she approached the dark doorway, summoning a gleaming orb of light to hover near her as she passed into the Crucible.

Immediately she slowed her pace. The Crucible was never identical from test to test, but there were many constants about it – one of them being that even the footing could be treacherous, or worse.

"Interesting."

Urelle whirled, looking everywhere, but the quiet voice had no visible source. At the same time, it was a voice, not something in her head. "What's 'interesting'?" she asked, managing to keep her voice nearly steady.

"You, child." It sounded like a woman's voice, someone about as old as her mother would have been. This time it spoke from above her right shoulder, and she restrained the impulse to glance that way. "It is long and long since one such as you entered the Crucible." The tone shivered along Urelle's spine; it was amused, cold, analytical. This was not a voice to comfort.

"You mean someone who wasn't a born Salandaras," she said, returning her attention to moving cautiously along. She muttered another set of arcane words, focused her will, and now she could see in the other forms of light; cracks around openings, she knew, would often become obvious in the vision of heat when they might be nigh-invisible in ordinary light.

"That, of course," the voice agreed, so clearly in front of her that her eyes tried once again to focus on something nonexistent. "But more, a magician. Rare they are in any of the Salandaras, and those adopted are usually of martial bent, as well."

Urelle sensed a sudden flare of power – not magic, but perhaps beyond that – and dove forward instinctively.

One of the great stone blocks of the ceiling dropped, a fifty-ton hammer sending a shock through the floor and pulverizing the rock below, a spray of grit and powder carrying the scent of heat and brimstone.

As she was completing her roll, Urelle saw a darker line on the ceiling, not two feet ahead, and checked herself with a spurt of fear. A metal grate slammed down not one inch from her left boot.

"Good reactions," the voice said calmly. "Perception and reaction, in efficient unity."

Urelle lay there, letting her frantic heart slow and her breathing steady. Balance, that was close! On both sides!

There was no moving the immense block behind her. Oh, if she took enough time she could find a way around it, through it, under it – magic did have its advantages, especially for a Shaper – but the point of this little trap had been clear: "you can only move forward, not back".

Of course, now a strong iron grate was telling her that she couldn't move forward, either.

"Who are you?" she asked finally, rising to her feet to examine the grate.

There was a pause, long enough that Urelle began to wonder if her unknown observer had departed. But then, "An interesting question. I am not sure I know the answer."

That was an unexpected response. "You don't know who you are?"

The grate was of a fairly standard design – a set of bars spaced six inches apart, inch-thick rods of blackened steel, set in a framework three or four inches wide, also of blackened steel. She'd caught a glimpse of wickedly sharp points as the grate came down, so from that momentary impression she deduced that the rods ended in about one and a half to two feet of steel below the framework now resting on the ground, pointed to impale anything below. The whole thing would weigh many hundreds of pounds, maybe more than a thousand.

"Child, I know who I am. But I am not sure of the answer that would tell you who I am."

"Are you the Salandaras' patron? Their god or whatever power they rely on and are bound to?"

"They have many patrons, the Blessed and the Cursed. Their fortune and misfortune have made them many friends indeed. But in the way you mean… yes, I am."

Urelle studied the perimeter of the gateway closely; squinting ahead, she could see a windlass or similar structure that could be used to raise it. There didn't seem to be any latching mechanism, although it was possible there was one hidden below the ground, where the ends of the bars were.

But if there wasn't, there might be a fairly easy way around this. "Do you speak to all of the children?"

"Not to all. To some. Those who need it, those who pique my interest. But it is not uncommon; even those raised in the Salandaras may find that they need someone to reassure them, in the darkness of the Crucible." The same chill amusement clung to every word.

"Begging your pardon," Urelle said, "but you don't sound comforting at all."

She focused on the grate. Just like the airwing spell. Airwing let her fly – not terribly fast – and part of that was negating her own weight. She had also done a number of spells involving moving objects around with magic.

Admittedly, those were generally small objects, and even with all her equipment Urelle wasn't sure she weighed a tenth of the mass of that grate. But on the other hand, she didn't really need to move it – just make it, for a few seconds, lighter than air, so it would float up of its own accord and let her pass.

"I did not say you were in need of reassurance," the voice answered. "You present a problem, Urelle Vantage. An interesting problem, even a worthy problem and candidate, but nonetheless a problem, a riddle to be properly asked and answered."

She brought up the magic, and began what was one of the most straightforward, yet difficult, Shapings: changing how the very shape of space saw something. She saw the grate surrounded by what seemed a whirling funnel that plunged sharply down below, the pull of the world upon the grate. She reached out and concentrated, feeling the weight not with her body but her mind, bearing down upon her like a blanket of lead and gold, a blanket that could not be grasped yet was more absolutely real than the actual metal.

Slowly she raised her hands, willing the whirling, immobile vortex of mass to quiet, to shrink, to rise.

"And I think part of the riddle must be asked now."

A door slammed shut on her mind, a door of krellin and ironwood a dozen feet high and three thick, and she screamed, a short, incredulous grunt of pain and shock. In the same instant, her mystic vision vanished, and the glow-orb was extinguished; darkness absolute as the grave rushed in to fill the void.

Minutes passed before she could recover from the impact of something she had half-expected, yet had never really imagined, had heard of only in ancient Adventurer's tales. "You… you shut away my magic!"

There was no reply, but somehow, she had a sense of distant laughter… and keen, icy interest.

Urelle touched her neverfull pack, found it sealed; the space between space that held her equipment could no longer be reached. Myrionar's Sword, that's going to be… what if the connection was severed?

She knew the answer, of course. If the enchantment that made the neverfull pack work hadn't just been temporarily inactivated but was destroyed, then she would likely never find anything that had been in there again; it would be lost between, found only by sheer luck or by the strange and sometimes lethal beings that prowled the shadows between the layers of reality.

On the other hand, if she didn't get out of here, it wouldn't matter if anyone found her stuff.

"All right. Forward," she said.

She wasn't at all sure where forward was at the moment; there was not the faintest trace of light in any direction. She thought she remembered seeing, just beyond the windlass, a shadow that might be a torch or light-orb holder, but that did her no good here.

Worse than the lack of light, though, was the lack of sense of the world. She had been aware of the magic since she could remember, and though it could not, usually, substitute for sight, it had always been there, giving her a clear awareness of existence, of there being walls and wind and iron, fire and light and dark, power and promise rippling in bright mists throughout the entirety of creation.

Now she was trebly-blinded within an hour – first losing her newest perception, the connection with her friends, and now bereft of sight and mystic senses.

All she needed, though, was light. The Crucible did not want to encourage her to magic her way through all obstacles. But she was still living; the stones were still solid and cool, the metal, when her hand found the grate, as smooth and immobile. Matter was still itself.

She backed slightly away from the grate, felt in front of her and brushed at the stone, carefully cleaning away every trace of dust or stone chips she could find. Then she reached into one of the pouches at her side, glad that she didn't carry everything in the neverfull pack… and that she always, always arranged her materials in exactly the same way.

Sure enough, the small vial she remembered was there and – she shook it – still filled with the essence of water. With infinite care she set the vial on the floor before her, and practiced reaching out to touch it several times, to make sure she knew exactly where the vial was. I have only one; I can't make a mistake here.

Alchemy should still work. Alchemy was bringing out the essences of physical materials, with some symbolism to focus the manner of expression of the essences. The field of enchantment, or whatever, that the Crucible's resident or overseer had put into place still left Urelle's spirit and thoughts untouched, left all the materials unchanged; Urelle was pretty certain that it couldn't inhibit alchemy to anything like the extent it shut down more separate and independent magical forces.

And, fortunately, this wasn't a difficult alchemical challenge. She needed a Vial of Light, and while there were many ways to make one, the easiest and most straightforward (if rather wasteful in terms of materials) was the Endless Burning Water, made from the essences of four of the five key elements – earth, air, fire, and water. The vial was already infused with the essence of earth, and it held the essence of water. That provided an anchor for fire, which could not burn alone, and water to shield and moderate the power of flame. However, water and flame together would result in flame being swiftly extinguished, so one had to introduce air, to support the flame, at the same time and in the same amount as fire.

Fire essence capsules – tiny spheres of glass filled with the essence – were very useful tools in any alchemist's kit, and Urelle had a tube packed with pearlseed fluff that cushioned six such tiny spheres. Larger spheres of fire essence, of course, were used as weapons; the False Justiciars had used them in the attack that had killed her parents. Her little fire essence spheres came from the far-right pouch.

On the far-left pouch – as far away as could be from the fire-essence capsules – were the air-essence capsules – similar in appearance, though fire-essence glowed a brilliant red and air a barely-visible blue-purple. Neither of them bright enough to be a light by themselves, unfortunately. One did not combine the two casually, since that could create an explosion as the air fed the fire in the most perfect conceivable fashion.

The real problem's going to be actually adding these. The thin glass capsules had to be broken inside the vial, after the top was sealed; you couldn't pour fire essence and air essence into a bottle like water or ground earth, at least not without a good lab and magical assistance she couldn't use here.

With extreme caution, she removed one fire essence capsule from its tube, sealed and replaced the tube, and then felt gingerly about until she found the little glass vial. She inserted the capsule into the neck of the vial by feel, and then let go; the lack of reaction, and the shimmering of the red-gold dot, told her the delicate capsule was still intact in the water essence.

She repeated the operation with the air essence; now the two capsules were where they had to be. But how would she break them, after she sealed the top? Not only that, but she'd have to break them both quickly. Oh, if the air capsule broke first, it wouldn't be a problem, but if the fire capsule broke first, there would only be a few seconds before the water essence extinguished it.

Holding the stopper in her teeth and the vial in her left hand, she moved carefully away from the grate and nearer to the fallen block. Her right hand touched the ground, felt around, locating several chips of dense rock. The first few were too large, but finally she found one that just fit through the neck of the vial.

She placed it in the neck, barely holding it up, and prepared herself. Then she let it go and whipped her hand up, grasped the stopper, and began screwing it into the top of the vial as fast as she could.

Nothing happened, which was a relief. She'd had to act as though the pebble would drop on one and break it, which probably would've been a disaster – she doubted that, fast though she was, she'd actually have even gotten the stopper positioned before the break happened. But now, with the stopper in place…

She bit her lip, took a deep breath, and then began shaking the vial as hard as she could. A few seconds passed, and then there was a red-orange flash. Balance! That's the fire capsule!

The momentary flash of light was already dimming, and Urelle redoubled her efforts, praying while the light guttered, faded…

And then flared out brilliantly as the air essence burst free from its capsule and filled the water-essence with its own flame-nourishing matter.

The Endless Burning Water illumined the area almost as brilliantly as her magical globe, with a cheerful warm yellow flame-light, burning within the liquid in skeins of rippling fire that danced, miniature dust-devils of flame, from the bottom of the vial.

The "Endless" was an exaggeration, of course; the Vial would eventually shatter, once the fire had consumed enough of the crystal to weaken it, but that would take days, weeks, perhaps months. She breathed a sigh of relief; she had been right about alchemy. That might give her a few more resources to work with – though precious few. She relied on the neverfull pack to hold almost everything. She then tucked the Vial into a loop on her belt and turned back to the grate.

It hadn't changed since she last looked, and she saw no way around it but that she would have to try to lift it by main force – and somehow get it high enough that she could duck under it before it fell. There wasn't anything big and strong enough to support it – the largest pieces of rock the fallen block had made were barely the size of her fist.

The silence in the Crucible felt deafening; she had never realized how used she was to some kind of sound, even merely leaves or grass rustling in a breeze, or how ominous their absence would be. She ignored the foreboding sensation and first removed her pack; without anything actually inside the main compartment, at least for the moment, it was easy to squeeze it through to the other side of the bars. She didn't want anything on her that might make her a larger target, or possibly snag on pointed steel bars as she was making her way through.

Then she put on the thin leather gloves that she had tucked in her belt, to protect her hands and give her a better grip, and started stretching, giving every muscle a little workout to wake it up, prepare it for the next few minutes. Finally, she stepped up, grasped the crossbar that was about a foot or so from the ground, and lifted.

She did not, of course, put her full effort into it yet. She wanted to make sure she had grasped it properly, that her feet were positioned just right to take the pressure, and so on. She'd done more than a few heavy lift practices with Lythos, and though both her brother and Kyri had done a lot more, she knew very well the risks and techniques.

And there was, at least, one advantage with the grate: it was set in guide channels. There was no chance of it unbalancing and tipping her forward or backward, or falling sideways on her. If she could lift strong and lift straight, it should come up.

If it wasn't too heavy for even a Vantage to lift.

She set her feet, gripped the bar again, and heaved.

For an instant, she thought it was too much, that it was not going to move. But then there was a quiver, and the gate grated upward an inch, two inches, and it was a hair easier now that it was moving, but by Myrionar it was heavy, feeling like she was lifting her brother and sister, one on each end of the crossbar, both in full armor, to boot. She heard her voice echo around the Crucible, a strained, gutteral groan as she threw more effort into the lift, felt the bar still rising, and there!

It was up, resting with grinding force on her palms that had now shifted under the crossbar. But below her was the base crossbar of the gate, and below those, still only a few inches from their sockets, were the spearlike points of the bars. She had to get it much higher. And that meant she was going to have to somehow lift it high enough, and then move fast enough, that she could get the bottom bar to her chest area – and then swap grip from the higher to the lower crossbar.

No time to waste. She already knew that she might never get it this high again if she dropped the gate now. She threw her full effort against the bar, and after another infinitesimal, terrifying hesitation, it ground upwards again. Urelle forced it up, past her face, past her head, and for an instant stood, arms above her head, the edge of the crossbar digging into her upper arms.

With a grunt she shoved upward on the bar, then dropped both hands down – ripping her left arm open on the steel as she did – and caught the bottom bar just as it began to descend.

     That very nearly ended her; she felt something starting to tear in her arm as she halted the downward motion, forced the grate to stop, then climb higher, higher. She gave another harsh groan, pushing with everything she had left, right bicep filled with a bright-flaming pain, and then fell forward, rolling. The gate rammed down behind her, nicking the heel of one boot.

She lay there, panting, her muscles twitching, feeling the hard, dusty stone under her cheek, the light of the Vial emanating streakily from underneath her. Urelle rolled over onto her back, rested a few more moments before climbing to her feet.

"Strength and control of mind and body. Good." The voice was a deep bass, accented with a hint of the far North, possibly Skysand.

Yet somehow Urelle knew this was the exact same speaker. "You knew I was strong before, I'm sure."

A laugh floated from above. "But I did not know how much was magic. Oh, there is strength beyond the mere muscle within you, but it is a part of you, one that simple magic repression can never touch; that, I see now, I could remove from you only if I were to unmake you."

These were interesting comments, but she had to concentrate on why she was here. Without magic, I'm at a real disadvantage if I have to fight, she thought. The records of the Crucible often mentioned various deadly creatures within the shifting maze.

She moved forward with care, looking around. There was the windlass, and in a niche to the side, a long lever that probably was used to trigger the descent of the grating if it had to be done by hand.

The lever interested her. It was long – four feet or so – and fairly slender. It was also held on only by a large setscrew, which Urelle rapidly removed with some of the tools she could still access.

The lever was somewhat heavy, but still acceptable for a staff or an oddly narrow two-handed mace. It was of thick rolled steel and could probably take a lot of punishment. All right, I'm at least somewhat armed. The air and fire capsules and a few similarly touchy materials would give her a few other options, though she hated to use them up.

"So you test people for … what? Strength, I guess. Resilience. What else?"

"Do you believe it is always for the same things?"

She paused, moving forward, seeing the corridor finally widening out ahead. That could be good or bad. "I'd guess that there are some things you're always interested in. The others… probably depends on the kind of person."

"Indeed. For those born Salandaras, I already know much of them – of their minds, of their bodies, of their ancestry, for all of them have passed through here; their mothers and fathers, the parents of their parents, and so, until the beginning.

"But you… you are a child of distant lands indeed, one with her own secrets – some she herself does not know, does not understand how to know." Another chuckle. "For you, the questions are many, if you would also leave here alive and take the name Salandaras as well as Vantage."

In the light of the Eternal Burning Water, she could now see that there was a chamber before her, one with three exits on the far side… and something else, a dark, sinuous form that shifted as she entered.

She gripped her improvised mace-staff tighter as the thing finished rising and turning. A valakass; a wild valakass, and a big one!

Tame valakass were riding lizards, low-slung but powerful mounts or harness beasts. They could be quite large – some up to five hundred pounds – and if angered were dangerous, but the domesticated ones really took effort to make angry unless they were starving.

Wild valakass were something very different – and could be much larger. As this one stalked closer, with the deceptively slow, smoothly-oscillating side-to-side gait of such large reptiles, Urelle swallowed hard, her throat suddenly tight, her mouth unexpectedly dry; this one was a monster, probably over a thousand pounds and fifteen feet long, maybe more. Its head came up nearly to Urelle's chest; dark, beadlike eyes glinted hungrily, and she could see the gray-green beaded skin shifting with the working of the muscles – skin that, she knew, was filled with embedded bone, armoring the creature against any ordinary blows. The wedge-shaped head tracked her movements, and the jaws parted for a moment, showing wickedly sharp, backwards-pointing teeth and ropy strands of venomous saliva.

She brought up her weapon and shouted as loudly as she could. I don't want to fight this thing – I've got to convince it that it doesn't want to fight me!

The hostile motion and noise did cause the valakass to slow, shift its pace slightly. It was still approaching, but on a curved path, circling her – maybe looking to see if she was vulnerable from some particular direction.

She turned to face it, judging angles and distances. She thought about trying to just run, but she instantly discarded that thought; that would mark her as prey, and she'd seen how fast even domestic valakass were. The thing would be on her before she'd crossed the room.

No. The only way out was to either convince it she wasn't prey… or beat it in a fight.

A smooth, forked pink tongue flicked out, pulled back, flicked out again, tasting the air, judging her scent. If it can smell my fear, it's going to really start thinking of me as prey. She remembered Lythos, his constant instruction on control, on perception, on action:

"Urelle, I know you do not intend to be a warrior; yet even those who are not warriors may find that they must fight. If you fight through fear, if you fight through anger, you will nearly always lose. You may feel fear; you may feel anger; but you must always discipline your feelings when it comes to battle. Draw from those feelings for strength, for swiftness, for determination and purpose; but never, ever allow them to dominate, to draw from you."

As the thing circled, she drew in a breath, let it out, imagining fear leaving her body in a yellow-green cloud, breathing calm blue in, exhaling bilious yellow fright. Her hands steadied just a touch, and she turned to watch the creature more carefully. It was huge, no doubt about it, although maybe she had slightly overestimated it on first sight. Still, from the point of view of fighting it, there was little difference between an eight-hundred-pound lizard and one three hundred pounds heavier.

She saw something – a tighter ripple in the muscles, a shift in the rhythm, a raising of the body for an instant – and lunged aside, as the valakass charged towards her. Even as she dodged, she swung the windlass lever as hard as she could.

The impact buzzed in her hands, almost made her drop the metal shaft, but there was a sharp thud! and the huge lizard hissed and shied away, scuttling back to its former distance.

"Come on! Go! Get out of here! Or just leave me alone!" she shouted. "I'm not prey!"

It hissed at her but continued circling. At the same time, though, she noticed it was favoring one front leg; she had struck it hard in the shoulder, and the blow had at least done some damage even through the natural armor.

I have to try to make some progress, maybe force the thing to change its approach or give up. As it circled, she tried to take steps to move her slowly towards the exits on the far wall.

It lunged at her again, but she had already thought through her response; she dodged in the other direction and this time brought the mace-staff down hard on its head.

It had shied away just as she struck, but this turned out to be a terrible mistake; instead of crashing down on the broad skull, the point of the long mace hammered with crushing force onto and into the right eye socket.

The creature gave a metal-tearing shriek and scuttled away, putting distance between itself and the little but powerful human. Okay! I've scared it now!

Still keeping an eye on the creature, which was both limping and moving more tentatively with only one good eye, Urelle began moving briskly towards the far exits.

But then the thing gave a louder hiss and whipped around, scuttling towards her with a confused but still powerful limping gait, fury deadly clear in its remaining onyx eye.

It’s limping, was the partially-formed thought, but she didn't wait for the whole thought; without a moment's hesitation, she turned and ran, sprinting all-out towards the central corridor.

The thing's claws made a scraping, stacatto rattle behind her – but not, at least yet, one getting closer. If I can just keep up this pace, it might run out of breath first!

But then, as the light from the Eternal Burning Water ran over the ground before her, she saw a line, a suspiciously straight line, crossing the path from one side to the other.

There was no time to stop; even if she could have seen it in time, there was a monster right behind her. So she did the only thing she could: gathered herself just as she reached the mysterious line in the rock and leapt up and forward.

She saw the ground pass below her, and another line across the hall – and yet another, ahead, getting closer…

She did not – quite – make it.

But it was the valakass that ran straight onto the trapdoor first.

A section of the corridor twenty-five feet across abruptly dropped away, and both giant lizard and little Adventurer plummeted downward.

In the light of the vial, Urelle suddenly saw the bottom of the pit was covered with ranks of sharp stakes, the points unnaturally dark, and twisted herself desperately in midair to try, somehow, to evade the spikes as they rushed up to meet her.

The valakass, unfortunately, had no possibility of doing so; in every dimension its body was wider than the maximum separation of the spikes, and its mass and the fifteen to twenty foot fall drove it onto the sharp points with irresistible force; it struck with a crunching, squelching noise and a suddenly cut-off shriek.

Urelle struck hard, feeling a twisting agony in her shoulder as she hit, and at the same time a tremendous burning, acidic pain ripped through her right leg.

She gasped, the red-bright pain blotting out her vision, almost taking her consciousness; several moments passed before she could even breathe enough to drive the shadows back from her vision. Hardly daring to look, she forced herself to look down the length of her body.

She had fallen almost entirely between the lethal spikes; only one had struck her, and that one through her right calf.

She recognized the pain and sense of wrongness in her shoulder. It was dislocated, not broken. She might be able to pop it back in place, somehow. But her leg…

"You sought fortune when needed, and fortune found you," said a rough, gravelly voice – a voice that was, nonetheless, the same as before. "A good indication."

"Fortune? I'm at the bottom of this pit with a poisoned spike through my leg!"

Another laugh, this one sounding the same as the others even though it also sounded like rocks grinding and splintering against each other. "That is still great fortune indeed, little Adventurer. To fall so that only a single spear touched you, and that one in but a single extremity? To have broken not a single bone in your fall? You might practice that for a year and never duplicate the feat. No, fortune smiled upon you in that moment." Somehow, a sense of a grim smile. "But still, it gives you a new challenge to face…"

Feeling the burning, acid sensation increasing, Urelle focused, lifting her leg. She could feel the spike dragging on her leg, and nausea rolled in waves through her. Can't stop now. Myrionar, help me! I don't think I can do this…

For just an instant, she suddenly felt… a presence. Not the ironic, cold one behind the voice, but someone… someone warmer, tall, strong, just behind her, almost holding her. You can do this, it seemed to say to her… and she had a phantom sense that the arms that encircled her were ones she knew well.

With a stomach-wrenching effort she pulled her leg free, fighting off unconsciousness and nausea with the memory of that moment, the echo of the hands gripping her shoulders. For a few moments she lay there, gasping, letting it bleed. It'll cleanse the wound some.

But she couldn't afford to lose too much blood. She gritted her teeth and sat up, feeling with her good hand for anything she could use to bandage the wound.

Bandage? I'll need two hands for that. I'll need two hands for just about everything.

Urelle felt her body shaking with shock, cold sweat trickling down her face, and for a few instants she just could not move.

But I am a Vantage. She knew what her brother would have done. She knew what her sister, her mother and father, and especially her aunt, would do.

Relax. She remembered Lythos talking Rion through reducing his shoulder, which had been dislocated in combat practice. "You can do this yourself – and should try to, now, for you cannot be certain of having any help elsewhere."

Relax the muscles. The pain tried to make her tense everything, fight the pain – but that would just make it worse, far worse. The entire trick to reducing, or re-setting, the shoulder wasn't a violent motion, or tense muscles, but the opposite: a slow, careful motion that began with the extension of the arm, and a gradual reaching around and behind the head, eventually to attempt to grasp the opposite shoulder.

 

Relax. She breathed slowly and evenly, despite her body's shock and pain and the blood flowing freely from her wound. She had her arm extended now, and it didn't hurt as much as she had feared. This helped her to keep the shoulder and neck muscles relaxed. Up now, slowly… A spark of pain, and she paused, breathing, concentrating. The pain faded, and she reached up, up, over… now her hand was down, rotated, as though she needed to scratch her own neck. Another breath, and now the final reach, towards her other shoulder –

Pop!

There was a spark of new pain, but instantly a far greater feeling of relief, of something wrong suddenly become right again.

She sat up and immediately looked at her leg.

There was a bloody hole an inch in diameter through the leg – or it would be an inch in diameter if the muscle held the shape. Bleeding badly. Healing draughts all in the unreachable pack. Don't have any actual bandages. Could improvise a tourniquet, maybe?

That seemed the best route. She could try to cauterize it with one of the fire-essence spheres as a last resort, but there were all sorts of ways that could go wrong. But she had a knife, strong cloth she could cut to a wide strip…

In a few minutes, she had cut a strip from her undershirt and wrapped it tightly around her leg above the wound. In one pouch she found a straight, strong stick she'd been thinking of enchanting into a luminance wand; that made a good windlass; she turned the stick multiple times until she was pretty sure the bleeding had stopped or at least really, really slowed down, maybe enough to clot. Another strip of cloth and another knot and the stick was anchored so it wouldn’t just unwind.

At last she let herself rest a few minutes – dug out a strip of dried fruit and drank water from her meager supplies. The burning from the wound had not stopped, and she could feel something wrong inside her. Poison… or maybe a really fast-acting infection.

I have to get out of here.

The pit's walls were sheer and while not polished, the rough stone offered little hope of purchase; there were no handholds she could see. The one-eyed corpse of the valakass offered no useful suggestions, and while big, it wasn't nearly large enough to give her any method to climb out.

A rope with a grappling hook, or something like it, would have worked … but all her rope and most other equipment was inaccessible now. Her alchemical materials might be useful for other things, but she didn't see any way they could provide her with a way to fly or climb out of a pit. Some of the ones she couldn't access might, but that was useless thinking.

Her hand strayed to another pouch – a small one, hidden behind her belt – which held just a single, precious object: the tiny Lens, the token the Wanderer had left her. Do I use this now? she asked herself. She was certain it would work, even here in a magically-suppressed area; the Wanderer would have made his token as best he could. And I don't want to follow what Ingram called the Parable of the Always-Worse. Things could get worse… but if I don't get out of here…

Finally, she shook her head. Maybe. But try again. The Salandaras and their patron don't want to simply kill the candidates. I have to believe that there is some way out of here if you survived the threat. For every threat evaded, there must be a way to move forward… involving solving another riddle, or facing another threat.

Urelle looked around, surveying the area more carefully. Aside from her and the dead valakass, there was nothing else in the pit except the carefully arranged array of spikes, separated by just barely enough space to walk between, arranged in a perfect, ordered array except where a few had been broken by the valakass' tail in its final convulsive thrashing.

Something about that nagged at her, but it was hard to focus with her leg throbbing and the uncomfortable hint of burning within the rest of her body. Think. Why is it significant that some of the spikes were broken?

No. It wasn't just that they were broken. It was something else… associated with her other thought.

Nothing else in the pit with us.

Now, it might be that the Crucible was an entirely magical place, literally shifting and rebuilding itself for every candidate. But she'd felt the effort of her unknown watcher to bring down the stone. That was a directed choice. It wasn't the feel of simply activating a known change, any more than the sudden suppression of her magic. Yes, that challenged her, but if the Crucible of Children were infinitely mutable for every entrant, it could simply have shifted to present her with appropriate magical challenges.

"That's why I presented a 'problem'," she said to herself. "Most of the Crucible is fixed. Maybe there's a lot of different paths through it, and each candidate gets a different combination of those paths, so no one candidate's likely to see the same things, but each path is real… and most of the challenges in the Crucible are made for strong fighting types. That's why my magic had to be shut down. And since they're children, they won't have much equipment on them, so my neverfull pack had to be negated too."

The unseen voice did not answer, but she pursued the thought, a cool excitement now balancing the heat of the poison or infection working its way through her. Nothing else here? Perfect except for where the valakass fell?

Someone had to maintain this pit. Almost certainly it would be Salandaras, or someone close to them, who did it. They could just climb down into the pit, but no matter how careful you were, that could be risky; you didn't want your maintenance people falling onto poisoned spikes.

So much easier if you could just walk in…

As soon as the thought was clear, she could see where the entrance had to be: under one of the two doors. There were no spikes directly under the open doors, leaving about three feet of clear space on each side – not useful for people falling, but for someone entering or leaving, it would be perfect. The pit was twenty feet deep, and with a twenty-five foot span that meant each door was only twelve and a half feet long; that left a space beneath each door that was seven and a half feet high – comfortably high for an exit or entrance door.

Knowing what she was looking for, it did not take long to find it: a narrow, perfectly rectangular crack on one wall, outlining a door. The question was, could it be opened from inside the pit?

Urelle thought it could. There were no marks anywhere on the walls, but there had been no list of allowed equipment, no discussion of what she was to carry; the children were evidently free to bring what they wanted. The magic-negating field on her had been a special action, not an ordinary one, so it might be that even neverfull packs were normally fair play. Some of the candidates must have carried rock-climbing gear, and those would leave marks.

So the maintenance people carried something, probably a minor stoneworking charm, that let them erase small piton holes or such. But that would also let them seal the door when they left, eliminating the cracks entirely.

The fact that they hadn't argued that they intended a candidate who survived the fall to have a way out, even if they hadn't brought climbing gear, as long as they were smart enough – or, more likely, methodical and determined enough – to search the walls.

With that deduction, it took only a few minutes to prove she was right by testing the nearby spikes and finding that one could be pulled up just a short distance and then turned. The door swung open with barely a whisper of sound.

Elation was also met by a wave of nausea; she did not – quite – lose her lunch, but it was a near thing. I've got to get out of here. My leg's hurting worse, and I don't have an antidote or healing draught for the whatever-it-is that the spike put in.

And I have to get out of here because unless I do, we can't go on.

Her will alone focused against her pain, Urelle Vantage gripped her weapon and moved forward into darkness.

 

 

 

The post GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 10 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 9

Time to look in on our adversary and see that he's thinking ahead...

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Chapter 9.

He stood atop Mistveil Peak, looking out from Aegeia to the north and west. Somewhere out there, he knew, the armies of the Sauran King and the Archmage were confronting those of Kerlamion. That would be a battle to see. And one that would likely allow him to steal countless souls for power. Unfortunately, I don't have time for such amusements.

Raiagamor had come here for a far different and much more urgent purpose. He extended claws rarely seen by any, assumed his true shape for a moment, for what he was about to do was delicate and perilous – if not to him personally, most certainly to his plan.

The Seal of Athena is not quite unbreachable. Beings such as the King and myself have a unique power to do so. But I must do it extremely carefully, for what I do not wish to do is leave a weakened area – or, worse, damage the enchantment so that it unravels.

What he did then would perhaps have made sense to the young mage Urelle – though she would never have been able to duplicate it. He touched the strands of enchantment, the stupendously complex and immense structure, and found the parts of the enchantment that barred creatures and beings of intellect or power… and slowly, carefully shifted himself until he could tell that those forces no longer responded to him, no longer recognized him as anything other than the least of animals.

With that, Raiagamor passed easily through a seal that could have stopped a god, and stood on the other side of the barrier. He walked down the slope, searching, until he found a flat area of stone, perhaps fifty feet long and twenty wide.

Now he could accomplish his goal. Resuming his human form, he produced from his neverfull pack a small table, a chair, and a metal-and-bone tube inscribed with many runes. When opened, the tube released the polished-metal scroll he had used several times before.

Setting the scroll in the holders designed for it, he sat down and touched the smooth surface, willing it to activate. "Majesty?"

There was no response at first, but Raiagamor had not really expected one. The King had his own plans and responsibilities, and would be unlikely to interrupt them for his still-unacknowledged offspring.

That he would answer eventually – of that, Raiagamor was certain. The King had given his word, and for all the terrible and true things one could say about him, one absolute was that he kept his word scrupulously.

So Raiagamor waited patiently. His rage was well under control; in this quiet, clean, cold space he felt as nearly peaceful as he ever could. For the moment there were no demands, no conflicts, no decisions, not even hunger. Just the wind and the mist, the faint hissing clatter as small stones shifted, the pure scent of the thin, crisp air. He took this in, let it fill him. Calmness, peace, these were things he knew so rarely, and both things that would serve him well in any contact with the King.

With scarcely a shimmer, the blank gold changed to a dark room and the familiar blond man with his even more familiar half-smile. "Raiagamor, what an unexpected pleasure. What occasions this call?"

And once more to the unspoken contest. "A pleasure to speak with you as well, Majesty. As you know, I had thought that, perhaps, I could and should complete my plan without availing myself of my third opportunity for your assistance."

"And yet you have called. Has something gone wrong?" The smile was a study in twin edges, false sympathy and mockery in one.

"Not at all, Majesty." A tiny but unmistakable uptick of the eyebrow. "At the moment, things appear well in hand. Yet I thought much on this, and it came to me that one who waits until something has gone wrong makes the righting of their plan much more difficult; and that one who foregoes a powerful resource out of pride is twice a fool. So I would consult you for a third and final time, now."

A true smile spread across the King's face. "Now that is both well-spoken and well thought, Raiagamor. And you are correct; even had your plan succeeded, I would have had doubts still had you not taken advantage of this resource. Pride is our strength… and our great weakness. So come, he who would be my child; what would you have of me? The Cards, once more?"

"No." He smiled with a sour edge to it. "Truthful or not, I have seen how well they seek to mislead; I begin only now to suspect the fullness of their deceptive truths. No, my King, I would have advice. Your advice. I will lay before you all I plan, all I know, all I guess, and then ask you to tell me one action that I have not taken that I should take to make my victory most certain."

The King pursed his lips, then stood and bowed. "Your thinking is clear and shows you have learned somewhat, Raiagamor. Very well." He extended his hand, and it emerged from the surface of the scroll. "Bring me through, for this is best done face-to-face."

Raiagamor grasped the King's hand and pulled; in an instant, the human form of the King stood before him. Raiagamor knelt and bowed his head.

"Oh, no, no need for that now," the King said, and pulled him to his feet. "I am here as a mere consultant, not one to take your oath or pass judgment… yet. Another chair would not go amiss, however."

"Of course, Majesty."

With both now seated, the King studied him from deceptively innocent blue eyes. "And will you trust me enough to take all you know directly? Or must we talk it through?"

Raiagamor considered. "If you give your word that you will take nothing I would not willingly give you, and pass no judgments unasked based on anything you see… then directly would be acceptable, and I think wisest."

The King bowed. "You have my word. I will take only that which you offer, that I must learn in order to properly advise you, and if I see aught else – say, your plans for my overthrow later – I shall dismiss it from my mind and judge you not." He laughed at the faint twitch that Raiagamor was not – quite – able to restrain. "Child, it is of no moment to me. Fully half of my children have entertained such thoughts at one time or another, and no few have gone beyond idle speculation. It is a perfectly reasonable ambition, even admirable if the plotter lays his plans well."

For an instant, the face shifted and the smile was immense, crystal blades beneath blank, yellow-glowing orbs, hungry and perilous. "The only punishment comes if the plotter sets their plans in motion… and fails."

In other words, I will be safe as long as I leave such things in the realm of thought and not of action. Good to know. "Then shall we begin, Majesty?"

The King took his outstretched hand.

Raiagamor found himself stumbling back, shaking, horrified and awed and fearful. The King simply laced his fingers together and leaned back, regarding Raiagamor with dark amusement.

It had truly been nothing but a single touch. Yet in that instant, the King's mind and soul had touched Raiagamor's. In that single instant he had felt the King locate and gather every element and aspect of his grand plan, every single fact or deduction or event, howsoever small, that might have relevance to the success or failure of the mission, and absorb it, a single drop of water added to the immensity of an ocean. But more, Raiagamor had seen the Soul of the King, and it was infinitely more grand and awesome and terrifying than Raiaga had even begun to imagine. It seemed to him that a monstrous shadow loomed up, encompassing not merely the world but the universe, stars and galaxies themselves as motes of dust before infinite hunger, ultimate malice, immeasurable and pitiless amusement at the devices and schemes of beings scarcely able to comprehend the adversary they would face.

"Yes," the King said softly. "Perhaps you are of my children, for few others indeed could have seen and understood so much, Raiagamor."

Raiaga was immensely grateful, all of a sudden, for the brief but intense peace he had felt before. That peace gave him a buffer, a cushion that allowed him to fight back against the feeling of insignificance and horrid, hungry menace without letting the rage envelop him – something that would have undoubtedly been fatal. He expected that reaction; now I must recover, must accept and act as though I have seen nothing!

He rose and seated himself across from the King. "So you have seen the plan and all things I believe impinge upon it."

"I have. And an excellent structure of intent you have built. It is… worthy of having inspired me. Have you any specific question you wish to ask, or any additional thoughts?"

He took a breath – not, strictly speaking, necessary, but the human body responded to such things, and it was well to pay attention to all aspects of one’s masquerade. "I have thought long and hard on these things, Majesty, and one thing that I have, reluctantly, come to conclude from study of history is that would-be heroes, and especially Adventurers, overcome obstacles, even – or perhaps especially – when this appears impossible."

"And…?"

"And that means that, improbable though it would seem, I must assume that Ingram Camp-Bel and his companions will somehow find a way through the Seal and all the obstacles I have raised – even though some of those exist on levels he cannot possibly imagine now. I believe it would be best if your advice touched upon them in some way."

"Oh, excellent. Yes, that is one of the most important lessons to learn. Heroes find a way. This is not merely a truism, it is, in some very real sense, the way the world works. The Creation prefers creation; we are agents of destruction."

Raiagamor stared at his unacknowledged grandfather. "You mean the universe itself assists heroes to their goals?"

"Ha! Not in so crude and direct way as you mean, yet… yes, indeed. It makes our challenges all the more amusing. So! Let me consider your problem."

For long moments, the King sat immobile in his chair, eyes glowing with that unreadable, blankly yellow flicker. The mist surrounding them faded away slowly, yielding to bright sunshine that warmed the stone about them. Raiagamor waited, watching the sun's slow movement, occasionally consuming a minor mote of power from insects that passed too close.

At last, the King stirred. "An intriguing problem to contemplate, Raiaga. I thank you. So rarely am I presented with something so worthy of thought, or – in truth – a plan so well-wrought, overall, in both its functionality and its ability to eventually bring about confusion, pain, and suffering." He nodded. "And you have chosen excellent allies. Powerful, flexible, deadly to almost any… but no threat to you if you remain aware of them. Yes, these will serve you well."

"Thank you, Majesty."

"It is a pleasure to see, so thanks to you, Raiaga. Now, to the matter at hand. You were wise to speak the Camp-Bel's name first. This is not to diminish the significance of his companions; two Vantages in a party are, I am afraid, two too many, and that Iriistiik warrior is an unusual creature.

"But the Camp-Bel is the center of this. Oh, he may not be the one to directly endanger your plan – aspects of the Cards' prophecy argue against it – but I believe he is the crux, the one who will trigger, or possibly plan, the events that could threaten your grand design."

Raiagamor nodded. "And your advice, then?"

"Hmm. Well, as you have done everything reasonable to prevent his entry, I will focus on the likelihood that he and his friends pass all your barriers." The King frowned in thought. "Given his demonstrated prowess, we can both agree that Ingram Camp-Bel's purported incapacities were a blind, a ruse – and a cleverly enacted one. Yes?"

"Yes. Extraordinarily well enacted. I had not the slightest suspicion that this boy was anything other than a disappointment, and I would swear that no others did, either."

"Quite so. Thus, there must have been an equally extraordinary reason, and given other aspects… the Camp-Bels were in possession of knowledge of his future importance. A prophecy, the direct word of a god, even perhaps a forecast from some combination of their advanced technology and their peculiar connection to other forces."

The King glanced at Raiagamor, saw his nod, and went on. "It is my belief – one based on some knowledge I have that you do not, as well as on your own – that as of this moment Ingram Camp-Bel still does not know the details. He obviously knows, by now, that the Camp-Bels deceived him, and presumably since he still associates with them that he has accepted the benevolent, or at least neutral, nature of their motives in this."

While he didn't have whatever other information the King had, he felt the statement was reasonable. "Go on."

"This means, of course, that the other Camp-Bels have not told him, and I incline to the theory that none of the survivors know the details. The Camp-Bels are very much aware of one of the most ancient facts about such covert operations – as phrased by a human some years back, 'three can keep a secret… if two of them are dead.' They would not dare spread the true knowledge around very far. It would inevitably leak out. Since the highest ranked survivor of the Camp-Bels with Ingram was Pennon – formerly third in command – it stands to reason that of that group, only the original Captain and possibly his second in command would have known the secret."

"So… Ingram Camp-Bel no longer has a way of discovering his purpose?"

"Tsk, tsk, Raiaga. You have made a cardinal error – a small one amidst all the other work you have had to do, but still a potentially fatal one. You have accepted that the fact that your searches for remaining Camp-Bels have turned up nothing means that there are no remaining Camp-Bels. I believe that not only are there remaining Camp-Bels, but that it is likely close to half of their original clan."

Now a spark of rage ignited, and he clamped down on it ruthlessly. The King was in a fine mood, barely trying to tweak him today, and offering valuable insight. "I… see. You believe they were capable of hiding even from my best agents?"

"Say rather that they were capable of devising a way to disappear that would deceive such agents, with the distraction of the other part of the clan, especially if such agents had other interests and responsibilities. I do not believe – especially with some of the most capable allies you have – that they can remain hidden overlong against a search directed with the knowledge that there is something to find. But it will require some little resource and time to find them."

Riagamor considered this. "Yet how does it matter to this specific problem? Yes, they would undoubtedly be useful allies to Ingram and his friends, and for that reason must be destroyed, but, by your own words, the two who knew the truth are dead."

"Ahh, but think! There are – must be – two others who know the truth, had to know the truth."

Rarely did Raiaga think himself stupid, but this was one; even as the King spoke he saw his error. "My apologies for my blindness. His parents, of course."

"It would seem likely, would it not? The two closest to him must understand what he is to face, what he must do, and must make sure that – even as he is convinced he is the least of the Clan – he is trained to be equal of any task. This could never be accomplished unless those directly and intimately associated with him knew full well what they sought to do."

"And so your advice…"

The King smiled, and this was the smile of his true form. "… is that the Camp-Bels be found. As a group, naturally, they will be fine bait, drawing your nemeses into a trap. They must suspect nothing.

"But you – and your agents – must ensure that Ingram Camp-Bel never speaks to his parents again."

 

 

 

 

 

The post GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 9 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 8

Quester had come up with an idea...

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Chapter 8.

Ingram had to laugh. It was typical of Quester to find the straightforward path that no one else saw.

Druyar began to chuckle, too, and soon he and Frederic were laughing together. "That… that funny! Not stupid, maybe good idea. But funny."

"That it was. Quite clever, Quester," Frederic said, a smile still evident. "A most interesting idea, in fact. Let us consider it."

"Not much consider," Druyar said. "Salandaras if born, or if married to Salandaras. Yes?"

"Well, that is of course one obvious path, yes. If one of you were to marry into the family, you would be one of them."

That wiped the smile off everyone else's faces, including Ingram's. Marry? That was a tremendous thing to ask. But, he thought, a trickle of hope beginning to flow, it's not impossible, and maybe…

Victoria was the first to speak. "Not… entirely impossible. Marriages of convenience are not unheard of, and while I cannot see this as an option for Urelle or Ingram, let alone Quester, it so happens that I am currently unwed."

Druyar sighed and shook his head. "Can't just say words. Have to mean words."

"What Druyar means is that you cannot have a pure marriage of convenience – not and be counted a member of the Salandaras," Frederic amplified. "I do not think that it is required that you be in love with your partner, or that there have been any specific period of development for the relationship, but the oaths of marriage for the Salandaras are binding and specific, and you must mean them when you swear the oath."

Victoria nodded. "I suppose I should have expected something of the sort. To what would I be committing myself?"

Frederic reached into the small pack leaning on the table leg near him, dug around, and pulled out a small book, which he flipped through. "Ah. Here." He read for a moment in silence, his brow becoming furrowed as he did so. "Most of the conditions seem… not unreasonable, and deal with your proper relationship with your pledged partner – defending them, supporting them, listening to their concerns, and some parts of the oaths deal with the level and extent of exclusivity in the relationship, possessions, other responsibilities… but I am afraid that two of the most important conditions would pose an issue.

"First, you would have to renounce all loyalty to any and all other countries, becoming a citizen of Salandar first and of the State of the Dragon King second, with no others holding your loyalty."

Victoria drew in a breath. "That … is something to give me pause. I am a loyal citizen of Evanwyl, and as a Vantage I am technically one of the Eyes themselves, although at rather a far remove at the moment. But go on."

"The second is that you renounce your prior name and family, becoming a Salandaras in all ways."

Ingram felt the spark of absolute refusal from both Victoria and Urelle before the older woman spoke. "That is, I am afraid, a dealbreaker indeed. I am a Vantage, and I cannot renounce that."

"Neither can I," Urelle said.

"In honesty, I cannot blame you," Frederic said with a sad smile. "But if you cannot pledge those two oaths, then marriage is not an option."

Ingram felt as though a vise was slowly closing on him. There's no other way into Aegeia! We have to get through here!

For a moment he considered just charging through, into the rear of the castle, seeking a hint or sign of the weakness of the Seal… but his training simply sat up and smacked him for the thought. This is a rightful and just ruler, one of those I am to protect, not betray. And even if I would… it's ridiculous. I know the stories of the Salandaras; Druyar would probably beat all four of us by himself.

"There has to be some way, sir!" he said, hating the way his voice wavered, showing his own desperation in his tone.

The two were quiet for a few minutes, then Frederic looked up. "What about that woman, Serena? Isn't she technically a Salandaras?"

"Yah, yah, she is," Druyar said, perking up. But then his brows came down. "But … granted that for help. Saved many of us. Fought shoulder-to-shoulder, too, after saving town."

"Yes, I remember now," Frederic said. "It's a perfectly viable route, but you would have to perform some great service to the Salandaras before you could be given honorary acceptance into the clan."

"And unless something uniquely suited to us just happens to turn up in the next few minutes, it would seem unlikely that this could be done in the next few days, or even weeks," Victoria said reluctantly.

"Yes." Frederic's mouth firmed with resolve. "Still, the Salandaras Clan has existed for thousands of years. I have to believe that similar situations have happened before. Let us see if the records have anything to tell us."

"Druyar not sneaky one," the Salandaras said with a grin. "Think straight forward, like sword blade. Let Guardian do twisty thinking."

Frederic smiled fondly at Druyar. "We each do what the other cannot. We both want a resolution to Ingram's problem without compromising our honor."

"Yes. Go look in records. I think here. Maybe slow, but sometimes think of things anyway."

The brown-haired Guardian led the way through a side corridor. "Druyar is not quite as slow as he makes himself out to be," he said.

"We had guessed as much," Ingram said. "Even with someone to help you, you don't survive Adventuring for that many years if you're truly an idiot."

"Truly. And he has occasionally surprised me and others by having a moment of brilliant insight. Still, he is right that complex thinking is my major part of our partnership – that and my mastery of natural forces, of course," Frederic said as they made their way down a long set of stairs, and then along another hallway. "The latter will likely not matter in our current problem, though."

"One possible problem," Quester said. "Do these other routes, such as being awarded membership, also come with the same strictures?"

"No," Frederic answered. "Marriage is a choice by the newcomer to become one of us; Clan-Through-Honor, or adoption, is a choice by the Salandaras, and this forces no other choices on the chosen."

They turned right and passed through an open set of double doors, of gray shardwood and bound with polished bronze. Enchanted, Urelle's mindvoice informed them. This whole room is well warded.

I am unsurprised, Quester said.

The room was over a hundred feet long, fifty wide, and twelve high, and the walls were covered with bookshelves, pigeonhole racks for scrolls, and a collection of other objects of various types ranging from a scattering of green crystals to a white-gleaming skull sitting in the center of one of the tables that ran up the center of the room.

"The Vault of Memories," Frederic said, gesturing around. "Every event of significance, and many of insignificance, throughout the clan's history is supposedly gathered here."

"I hope you have a guess as to where we should look," Urelle said, staring around with no little awe, "because there's no way we have a tenth of the time we'd need if we have to search everything."

"I do," Frederic said. "But I am afraid it will be the most mind-numbingly boring portion of the records. Over here," he led them to a series of shelves on the far side of the room, filled with rank upon rank of identical books, "are the membership records of the clan – simple notations of births, deaths, and marriages, as well as passage through the Crucible. If there is any other way to become a Salandaras, it will be hidden in these books."

"That makes unfortunate sense," Victoria said. "If we do not become so mind-fatigued that it all blurs out, the entry of a Salandaras who is not married or wed to the clan should stand out."

The little group divided up the six shelves of books between them, and began working their way through them. Six hundred books or I am still an egg, Quester said grimly. This will not be entertaining.

After getting the symbols used by the Salandaras to represent births, deaths, Crucible passage, and marriages firmly fixed in his head, Ingram found the records exactly as mind-numbingly dry as Quester had predicted. Page after page of names did, in fact, blur into each other, as he simply grew used to scanning for the symbols.

"Oh! What's this one?" Urelle asked, her voice shockingly loud after nearly an hour of silence broken only by the turning of pages.

"Let me see." Frederic scrutinized the page, then shook his head. "That is someone being sloppy. They started to mark marriage and then corrected themselves to birth – probably they were transcribing a number of events at once, catching up. But they weren't too careful about the correction."

"Balance," Urelle cursed. "I had hoped I had found something."

Another half-hour passed. "Frederic, I am quite sure that this is a new symbol," said Victoria.

"Hmm… My, yes, I have not seen that one before. Let me see…" Frederic muttered something and light danced on the page, was echoed from several of the other books. "Well, that isn't very helpful. Those other volumes will have entries with that symbol, but that doesn't tell us what it—"

"Pardon me," Quester said, "but there was also a glimmer from that shelf over there." He pointed to a shelf across the room and about eight feet from the floor.

"Over there?" Frederic's puzzlement was obvious. "Let's try again."

Sure enough, a green glint flickered on that shelf for a moment when Frederic repeated his spell. "Well, may Wind and Tree ward us. That's unexpected."

Urelle gestured and all the books near the glint – four or five of them – floated off the shelves and down to them.

"Yes, yes… now what's this?" Frederic had found an exquisitely thin book, more like a pamphlet, that had been stuck between two others. He opened it up, and then began laughing.

"What is it?" Victoria inquired.

"Something that would have made both your work and mine much easier had I known it existed. This is an actual key to the records – a summary of all the known and allowable markings to be used in the records. Someone – probably decades, perhaps centuries ago – put it up on that shelf for some reason, and it's never been put back where it belongs."

"So what is the symbol here, then?"

"Let's see… ah. Rather the opposite of what we were looking for. This means exiled from the Clan."

"Ouch. I guess that doesn't happen very often."

"This is the first I've heard of it," Frederic said, eyebrows both arched high. "But then, I doubt the Salandaras would want to call attention to such things, either."

"More importantly, are there symbols we should be looking for?" Ingram said, trying not to let too much of his impatience and worry show in his voice. "If we could find some such, that same spell of yours would really cut down our search time."

"That it would. My apologies, but understand, I spend half my life researching things; discovering a key glossary you never knew existed?" Frederic's brown eyes were practically sparkling with excitement. "That's like digging in a farmer's field and striking a vein of krellin." He bent over the little booklet again. "Hmm… yes. Here we go. This symbol means adoption into Clan. And this one… yes, I remember this in front of Serena's entry, it means Clan Through Honor."

"Adoption. Can you find that symbol?"

"Easily done. Everyone, go to the books we have out and sort out the ones that glow."

For a moment, Ingram was worried that most of the books would glow, but then he realized how unlikely that was; they hadn't seen that symbol in an hour and a half of searching.

Less than one out of ten of the books glowed this time, and they soon had all of them stacked on one table. They began leafing quickly through each, looking for that symbol.

"Looks like all of the kids so far were adopted very young – I'm not seeing any of them older than about three years old," Ingram said after a while.

"That makes sense, I am afraid. The Salandaras' way is hard, and children must generally be brought up in it to survive. They do not adopt often at all – most candidates for adoption would be brought to other families or cities. And as you see… many adoptees do not survive to be adults."

"The Crucible?"

Frederic bowed his head.

Ingram felt himself smiling. "Then that's the solution, isn't it? If Druyar will adopt me, then I have to pass the Crucible, and then I'm truly one of you."

"What if you get killed in the Crucible?" Urelle demanded.

"Look, not to minimize in any way what the Salandaras are like, they're still mostly kids who are what, eight, nine, ten? I'm sixteen years old and a Guilded Adventurer! Besides, if I can't get through this Crucible, how can I expect to survive whatever Ares has waiting for us?"

"The idea has some merit, young Ingram," Frederic said. "But, unfortunately, your age argues against it. As you have noted, the Crucible is intended for those significantly younger."

"They can't all have been the same ages. I mean, over thousands of years haven't there ever been exceptions?"

"It is, I think, simple to check." Once more Frederic muttered words that Ingram could not quite check, and the green foxfire light burned on most of the volumes; a second time, and perhaps half of them glowed. A third incantation, with a bit of strain showing on the Guardian's face, and only a few scattered volumes glowed; another, and only one glimmer was seen, on the table nearest Quester; two more repetitions of the spell, and this time there were no glows at all.

Frederic of the White Robe shook his head. "By combining the simple search of age with the Crucible symbol, I have surveyed the ages of those who passed the Crucible after their tenth year; as you could see, the oldest ever to pass was fourteen." He picked up the last volume to glow, leafed through it, found the entry. He then cast a similar spell again, looking weary, and several volumes on other shelves glowed. He chose one and paged through that one as well.

"The oldest to pass the Crucible was Jorna Salandaras, who had unique circumstances. She was adopted late – at about six years of age – and she was an Odinsyrnen, and so matured more slowly. Now while you could indeed argue that you have unique circumstances, I can't see them extending the age limit so far beyond precedent that –"

"I'm fourteen."

Ingram felt a spurt of both hope and fear go through him at Urelle's statement. "What?"

She looked at Frederic. "For another couple of months, I'm fourteen. And I know I'm human, but I haven't had any time at all to be raised in Salandaras society. I'm pretty well trained and I've been on Adventure with my aunt and friends, but I've still got to be less prepared than your normal Crucible entry. Couldn't that balance out my age?"

Victoria looked unutterably proud.

She's got to be terrified of the idea, Ingram thought, but she's not going to let Urelle see that. So Urelle shouldn't see me having that problem, either.

Frederic smiled, though a crease of worry was on his brow. "You realize that the Crucible is meant for Salandaras – warriors, almost to the last person. While this may make some of its challenges easier for a mage, others may be almost impossible. One of the blessings of the Salandaras is their strength, and you are –"

Urelle – only a couple inches over Ingram's height, and slender – stepped over to one of the long tables, gripped it, and with careful, slow deliberation, lifted the massive solid-wood table over her head, then brought it back down again, letting it come to rest without so much as a jar.

"… you are obviously not deficient in that category," Frederic finished his statement. He gave a half-disbelieving laugh. "It is in Druyar's hands, then. But perhaps. We have, at least, precedent, and the fact that we know and understand your urgency. It is, after all, not in the interest of the Salandaras to be manipulated by others, and if this is truly a false Ares, we should not be guarding his back door at all."

"Then let us put everything – including your newly-found key – back where it belongs," Quester said. "And then we can see what the Salandaras decides!"

 

 

 

 

 

The post GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 8 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 7

Today, our heroes reach the Freehold -- and confront the problem of how to get past the Salandaras who are there to prevent anyone from passing!

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Chapter 7.

"We must be getting close," Urelle said.

Victoria nodded, seeing the same signs as her niece. The path into Wisdom's Fortress was broad, not terribly difficult, but wound somewhat through the foothills. However, the way the slope of the path was changing, and the depth to which they had now penetrated the mountain range, argued that they must now be approaching the single pass through the range which was guarded by the Freehold.

"I sure hope so," Ingram said with a grimace, rolling his neck side to side. "Another week on the road after just one night in the Long Bar is really getting tedious."

"I, too, appreciate more sheltered resting places," Quester buzzed, "but at least that night was free, thanks to Urelle."

"Well, you all were watching—"

"—but we were not doing," Victoria cut off Urelle's attempt to minimize her work. "You found the problem, you undertook to solve it, and you did. The fact that you later discovered we had been observing does not in any way detract from the work you did. And Outas Salandar will remember it as well."

"I… I guess."

"By the Wisdom he certainly will!" Ingram's voice was affectionate and just a touch exasperated. "Stop minimizing your own work! You're an Adventurer like us, and with the three of us to testify to things you've done, you'll end up Guilded in no time once we can reach a Guildhall again."

Victoria nodded, pleased by the others' vehement insistence that Urelle take credit for her own work. And it was a good little bit of work; pests damaging the stores which turned out to be a bit more than ordinary pest control might handle, but a wizard with field experience? Not so much a problem.

They rounded a curve and could see before them… and all four of them stopped dead in the middle of the road, gazing incredulously at the sight before them.

After a few frozen moments, Victoria shook her head, leaning on Twin-Edged Fate as she gave vent to a soft laugh. "The world does not cease to amaze, does it?"

"How?" was Ingram's only word, staring forward and up.

She was asking herself the same question.

Twin mountains – the Guardian Twins, she thought they were called – reared before them, fifteen thousand feet high – and they were smaller than the ones flanking them. Between the Twins was – had been – a pass, a gap that had been narrow on the scale of such things.

But instead of the slopes of the mountains coming smoothly down to a pass, perhaps guarded by an ordinary fortress…

It was a wall, but a wall such as she had never seen, a wall beside which the barrier surrounding Zarathanton itself was but a temporary barricade. A towering, squared-off barrier looming fifteen hundred feet into the air, level for its entire mile and a half of breadth, lay before them, composed of the granite and basalt of the mountains, jumbled together as though they were a cross-section of an avalanche.

Glancing upward, she saw sharp divots in the shoulders of the Twins, and thought that – perhaps – that was precisely what the great wall was. Though how in the name of the Balance it became so straight and smooth and solid, I cannot imagine. Only the descriptions I have heard of the walls of Hell's Edge might compare with this.

In the air above the great wall… was tumult. The air itself flickered like heatwaves, clouds skirled and spun along the length of the stone bulwark, and other shapes danced and dove, in motions that might have seemed random but that Victoria could tell were nothing of the sort. Even were we to assay to fly over that wall, we would not find the passage easy; the air between the Twins is, itself, a wall, less substantial but I think no less effective than the stone beneath it.

Exactly in the center of that mighty barrier was a castle – a fortress that in any other setting might have been imposing indeed, but was here, before and against the titanic grey backdrop of that wall, somehow diminished. There was a tower on either side of the path they were following, flanking walls of the castle's own that rose over a hundred feet, with a broad set of double doors in the exact center.

Bright lights glittered along that wall, and flickers of firelight and lightglobes sparkled from the windows that showed the multiple floors within the fortress. The area before the gates was brightly lit, and as they approached Victoria could see that there were numerous soldiers watching, both from atop the castle walls and before the gates.

"Stop there!" called a guard wearing gold-striped mail. "Who are you? What brings you to the Freehold?"

"I am Victoria Vantage, Adventurer, Zarathanton Guilded," she answered. "With me are two other Guilded, Ingram Camp-Bel and Quester, and my niece Urelle Vantage, a wizard of some skill."

"You advance alone," the gold-striped one said. "We see your patch, check it."

"Of course."

Up close, the guard had black hair and darker skin than the other Salandaras she had seen thus far, but there was still something in his face and bearing that marked him as one of that clan. A scar ran across his face, and one eye was covered with a patch. "I am Nogra Salandar, First Guardian of Freehold Gate."

He tapped her patch, nodded at the response. "Good. You two, we check also," Nogra said, and in a moment Ingram and Quester had passed. He nodded at Urelle and gave a brief smile. "You come long way here. What reason? Freehold is closed – Aegeia has declared Seal of the Cycle. No passing here."

"Surely you would not deny travelers shelter, though?"

A rumble of laughter. "No, we have beds – not many, but we can find four more. War has crowded us; we prepare, in case war go badly."

"Have many Salandaras gone with the army?" Ingram asked.

Nogra nodded. "Many. Half our warriors go with Sauran King's army. Maybe enough. Most of others here… in case Black City does not fall." He glanced at them with a shrewd glint in his eye. "But you ask questions, not answer mine. What reason you come to Freehold? No one take this road by accident!"

She heard Ingram exchange thoughts with Quester, so swiftly that she could barely get a sense of it. They have been linked much longer than either Urelle or myself. Quester bowed to Nogra. "You are correct. We seek Druyar Salandaras, if he is indeed The Salandaras, as we have heard."

The thick black brows came together, then rose. "Yes, Druyar is Freehold Lord, the Salandaras, and he is here. You know him?"

Ingram tapped his shoulder. "It was he who awarded us our Guild Patches, and his companion of the White Robe who administered our final test."

"Hm! Sounds like something he might remember. Good, then. Come in."

The interior of the Freehold was only less impressive than its exterior by the fact that even the Dragon's Palace would have been small compared to the impassable bulwark surrounding and above the Freehold. The entryway was more than sufficiently grand, ornamented in statuary of bright colors that included many figures of warriors, women and men both, and a wide variety of monsters, strange mechanical beasts, and individuals of every species Victoria had heard of, and a few she hadn't.

They didn't have much time to study the scenery, though, because Nogra led them straight through another set of doors, past a vacant throne, and behind it to a smaller set of rooms.

A huge man wearing silvery-polished armor was studying a map with the air of someone trying to focus on a lesson several steps beyond them; next to him, a brown-haired man of average build in white-and-gold robes was speaking quietly.

The big man turned quickly, a student rescued from lecture by an unexpected but welcome interruption. "Nogra! What you bring…" He paused, and abruptly the square, stolid face lit up with pleasure. "Young adventurers! Have not seen you for long! Come, sit, talk!"

Ingram's face had also lightened. "You do remember us!"

"HA!" The laugh was quick and cheerful. "Druyar forget many things, yes, but not swear in many adventurers. And never one boy and one bug, no! You are… Ingram, yes, and this is Quester. Remember that. Quest mean adventure!"

"You appear to have made quite the impression," the other man said with a gentle smile. "Of course, I remember you both very well. Thank you, Nogra – you may return to your post." As the guard left, the smaller man went on, "now, Adventurer Ingram, if you would be so kind as to introduce your companions…?"

"Of course, sir! This is Victoria Vantage, also Zarathanton Guilded, and her niece Urelle, who is quite a wizard and should really be Guilded already, herself." He turned to Victoria and Urelle. "This is Frederic of the White Robe, and Druyar Salandaras, Guilded Adventurers—"

"—and Adjudicators of the Dragon Throne, yes," Victoria completed, and bowed low; she saw Urelle copy her motion. "It is an honor to meet you both. Your reputations most certainly precede you."

"As does yours, Lady Victoria, if you are indeed the same who once traveled with our newly-crowned King."

Druyar's brilliantly green eyes brightened further. "Oh! That Victoria! Yes, we hear many stories!"

Victoria saw a glint in that gaze that confirmed her suspicions. He may be far from the brightest man I have met, but he is certainly not as dull as he pretends. As befits a man of his reputation.

Druyar insisted they all sit, and then bellowed cheerfully for refreshments to be brought. Victoria did not argue; after all the time on the road, a chance to rest and eat would never go amiss. And here, at least, she felt safe, indeed.

Only after they had all eaten something did Druyar lean forward in his chair and speak. "Come long way to see me. Why?"

The others glanced at her. You want to tell him? Ingram's mindvoice asked.

I suppose I might as well. It is your mission… but it is ours now. "Because we have a mission which cannot succeed unless we can find a way to enter Aegeia."

Druyar frowned. "Can't just let –"

"Druyar, let the Lady finish," Frederic said quietly.

"Sorry. Go on, then."

"Ingram here," she gestured, and Ingram nodded, "is a native of Aegeia, a Camp-Bel, as I believe you knew. We have found of late that he has been hunted by others representing the god Ares, and have other reason to believe that he, and possibly the rest of us, are specific targets of theirs."

Frederic pursed his lips, but said nothing.

"Moreover, we have learned that Ares' actions are not normal for the Cycle. We suspect something far worse is happening, and that it may be a matter of prophecy that we, or at least one or two of us, will be vital to the opposition of Ares and the victory of Athena.

"Of course, we also know that Aegeia has been Sealed. But it is also certain that there is a point at which the Seal is weaker, perhaps able to be passed through by those with the skill to find that weakness and exploit it. Calladan Mystraios, the current Regent, worked with us to determine that the only likely location for that weakness is here, likely in the depths to the rear of the Freehold."

Druyar was silent for several long moments, his deeply-tanned brow furrowed under his peculiarly golden hair. Finally, he sat back with a deep sigh. "How you sure this Cycle bad? Not same as others?"

"Ares hunted down the Camp-Bels," Ingram said. "Half of them fled Aegeia entirely but he sent ships after them, and if we hadn't caught up with them at the right time all my Clan-brethren would have been killed. Assassins were sent out after us, tracking us with magical coins that showed our enemies the direction to find us. And the survivors of my Clan told me that there was some kind of prophecy associated with me, and maybe my friends, too."

"Huh." He paused again, then looked to his companion. "Guardian?"

Frederic – who Victoria now remembered was one of the Guardians of the Wild, serving under Willowwind Forestfist, the Warden of Nature and Chosen of Eonae – frowned and was also quiet for a moment. "Taking your words at face value – and I believe you, for as well as knowing you are Guilded I was the one who administered your final examination – you have, indeed, a powerful reason to find a way to enter Aegeia. And with the importance of Aegeia and Athena to the State of the Dragon King, there is also strong reason for us to support you in this quest."

"But…" Ingram said, speaking the implied word.

"But cannot let through." Druyar's tone was both regretful and final. "Oath clear. The Salandaras hold the Freehold. When the Seal made, we are part of Seal."

Which implies that Athena was very much aware of the one possible vulnerability when first she Sealed Aegeia. And the fact that no one has ever exploited it says that either no others have ever sought to enter that way…

…or that the Salandaras have done very well in their task, Ingram finished bleakly.

Urelle looked up. "The Salandaras are part of the Seal?"

"Is way oath worded, yes?" Druyar looked to Frederic again.

"Well… yes, I suppose. The Salandaras and the Freehold 'become the completion' of the Seal, if the ancient records are correct, and 'their wills support and uphold the Seal as one with their oath'."

"Then a Salandaras could pass through the Seal without breaking their oath, right?"

Druyar stared blankly at her, but his expression was matched by that of his companion. It was another minute before a smile spread like slow dawn across Frederic's face, transforming his ordinary visage to one of startled amusement. "I… cannot fault your logic, Urelle."

"Then if you come with us –"

Druyar cut his hand through the air, chopping the words off. "Defender of Freehold. Need to be here to protect people. If leave, will be to join army against Black City, or protect Salandar. Like to Adventure, but not this way."

"Druyar is correct." Frederic's expression held nothing but regret. "We have too many responsibilities, and there is no telling, first, if we even can find a way through the Seal, and second, if we could return, having done so. And," he held up his own hand, forestalling the next question, "our other, more formidable, Adventurers have nearly all answered the call of the Sauran King. There are no others here who could be both formidable enough to accompany you, and could be spared from the potential defense of the Freehold."

"But sir…" Victoria could hear the strain in Ingram's voice, trying to stay controlled and reasonable when part of him was so desperate to move, to go forward, "isn't there something you could do? This is part of your job too, right? To protect the State of the Dragon King? You are Adjudicators! There must be some way!"

"Can't see way. Not many Salandaras, really. Most good ones at battle."

Victoria sighed. He is right. In a way, it is like Ingram; the Camp-Bels have only so many people, and it will take them many years to recruit…

She felt a flash of light from Quester. Recruit?

"What is it, Quester?" Ingram asked, obviously having felt his friend's moment of enlightenment.

"What if," Quester said, with the deliberation of one just understanding their own idea, "What if… one of us were to become a Salandaras?"

The post GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 7 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 6

Our friends reach Salandar, and we learn something about these people that they're going to have to work with...

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Chapter 6.

Quester smelled Salandar before he could see it. There was a tang of fire and metal, the smell of forges at work; there was the faint understench of garbage and rot from the waste of many people living nearby, but no stronger than that of most places; Salandar must be reasonably clean. The scent of flowers, fields of gravelseed almost ready to be harvested, fresh water flowing; and the many different-yet-similar odors of humans en masse.

Sure enough, as they rounded yet another gentle curve in the Great Road, the clear area ahead was populated increasingly by buildings, concentrating to a dense clump a few miles in the distance. There seemed, however, to be something… not quite right about it, and he puzzled over that impression for several minutes before Urelle spoke.

"Why… I don’t think they have a wall around the town!" she said, disbelief clear in her tone.

"That was what was bothering me," Quester agreed instantly, chagrined by the fact the least-experienced of them had seen something so obvious before him. "I see no indication of such a defense." He focused attention narrowly, directing light to be concentrated in a somewhat different way, magnifying the road ahead at the cost of drastically narrowing the width of his field of view. "Hm. There is some sort of barrier or impediment, perhaps, but it is not terribly high. Certainly not what we are accustomed to seeing elsewhere."

"Indeed," Victoria said. "You will likely not see anything quite like Salandar anywhere else, either. They have chosen a unique approach to their city, rooted in their individualistic spirits. Every home is a fortress unto itself, and they are connected in time of trouble not by roads, but by tunnels – tunnels patrolled constantly, and enchanted by the allies of the Salandaras to prevent any easy access from below."

Ingram squinted. "So there wouldn't be anyone outside if they were under attack?"

"Only those involved in any battle," Victoria said. "All the people you can just make out, now, would be inside."

"What is that, Auntie?" Urelle asked, pointing to a peculiar structure located to the south and east. It reminded Quester vaguely of a nested set of pipes that had been cut diagonally, leaving an opening into a central area surrounded by concentric semicircular walls that rose up to the south.

Victoria's mouth tightened as she looked. "The Crucible of Children," she said quietly.

To Quester the phrase meant little, save a hint of something tragic yet proud from the clouded memories within him; Ingram's blink and raised eyebrow showed he, too, did not understand.

Urelle, however, went visibly pale. "The Crucible… I thought that was a story. A horrid story!"

"No. It's very much real."

"What is the 'Crucible of Children', Victoria?" Ingram asked. "I've never heard of it, and I don't think Quester has, either."

"It is a… testing area, one through which all able-bodied children of the Salandaras are sent once they reach no more than ten to eleven years of age," Victoria said after a pause. "The details of that, and the other testing and training the Salandaras put their children through, are not otherwise known."

"It is known," she went on, after another pause, "that many of the children do not survive. That area around the Crucible, the one that seems grayish from here, is the Memorial Garden, with a memorial for every child lost."

With a shuddering feeling within his very shell, Quester focused his gaze. Just in his range of vision, the gray abruptly turned to a multitude of distant carven gray stones, interspersed with walkways and dotted with color here and there of gems or flowers or other things in front of the monuments. "Mother's Mercy," he buzzed, aware vaguely that his voice must be almost incomprehensible to the others. "There are thousands of them."

It would be far less stunning in his own species, of course; larvae were not developed people yet, and were often disposed of for various reasons; the Queen could lay far more eggs than any Nest could support as adults. But for human children…

"Salandar has stood there a long, long time," Victoria said.

"What kind of monsters are they?" Urelle whispered. "Sending children that young to die…?"

Quester directed a spellstunned glance with Ingram. This certainly does not fit with my impression of Druyar, he thought to Ingram.

No. But if I've learned anything, it's that surface impressions are often really, really wrong.

"Not monsters," Victoria said. "A people under a most peculiar blessing… and curse. To meet its requirements, they maintain themselves as they are known – which means that even the children will be tested to near-destruction. The curse deprived them of the genius that could have been theirs; the blessing compensates for it, if they maintain the strength of their line."

Ingram seemed far less shocked, and memory told Quester why; the Camp-Bel traditions. Perhaps not so many died, but the deaths of both Camp-Bels, and of candidates for God-Warrior, were not few, and also involved those Victoria, certainly, would call children.

"What sort of… curse is this?"

She gazed out at the nearing city. "The Salandaras themselves speak little of it. It may be they know the details but consider them sacred secrets, or that they have forgotten the truth. What I have heard over the years, from sources that might know, is that many thousands of years ago the first Salandar (not their name then, of course) and, perhaps, his family, were involved in a great contest of gods; which of the darker gods is not clear; some say it was Kerlamion, others one of the Elderwyrm, others still that it was the Lightslayer itself. Their opponent is equally disputed – Terian, Chromaias, Odin, the Triad even. In any event, at the last the Salandar managed to win this contest, but by an act of what the enemy considered sheer, ridiculous luck, aided and abetted perhaps by brilliance, but still offensively improbable. Infuriated by what it considered defeat from a fluke of luck, unable by the letter of the agreement to kill the Salandar, it unleashed a tremendous curse upon the helpless human.

"But – again, according to the stories – at the precise same moment, the dark god's opponent sent down an equally powerful blessing. The two powers contested unexpectedly and dangerously, focused into a single mortal soul… and the result was not what either desired."

A faint smile moved a corner of Victoria Vantage's mouth. "The evil one had intended to reduce his victim to an imbecile and a cripple, one with barely the wit to understand what he had lost and unable to even clean or feed himself, yet long-lived enough to suffer for decades, with none able to undo what had been done. The being of light had wished to reward his successful agent, giving him the best of fortune and ability for so long as his line remained faithful.

"What they got…" she chuckled, a laugh that somehow still carried a note of sadness. "What they got was an entire clan, a line of descent and of association, whose mental capacities were drastically reduced from what they might have been… but not nearly so much as the enemy would have hoped."

Understanding brightened within Quester. "Ahh. Thus Salandar, from the Ancient Sauran S'Alandar – without knowledge." Depending on context, he knew, that word in Sauran could easily mean idiot.

"Yes; an insult that they embraced and made their own. They were, from the blessing, strong and courageous… and fortunate. But they were also bound to challenge themselves against the forces of the world, from the youngest to the oldest, and if they failed to do so, the original curse might win out, and this time affecting not just one man, but all those descended from him and bound to his destiny."

"So they're stupid and strong?" Urelle said after a moment.

Another snort of sad laughter. "Less intelligent than they might have been, though not all of them would be called stupid. And not, at that, forbidden a certain share of common sense and wisdom. But their fortune is the key, and many, even most, believe that what truly happened is that a god of fortune – perhaps the very essence of luck – intervened in that clash and took the Salandaras for its own. Those who survive the Crucible, thus, are seen as those chosen by Fortune. The others, I assure you, were no less loved, and they do not die unmourned – nor, I think, are their souls left to drift. They are claimed and protected by whoever or whatever their patron is."

She looked forward, to where the buildings were now drawing much closer. "And that is why it is said that any who know a Salandaras well may see their great cheer and great strength and spirit… and sense a sadness beneath, for not one of them who lives does not have a brother, a sister, a friend who went into the Crucible and failed to return."

Quester looked on the strange huddle of buildings and the towering shadow of the Crucible of Children with a new, painful empathy. Cursed to a course they could not escape, they could have broken, died away or become less than they were. Instead, they had embraced the curse and blessing they had been given, and let it become their strength, instead of their weakness. "And thus they are known to be worthy of trust, for their resolve is shown to be so very strong."

"Certainly my view," Victoria agreed. "I've heard many stories about the Salandaras, but one that I've never heard is of one committing treachery. Even the Dragons and the Saurans can't say that about their people."

A tall, broad figure of a woman stood in the road before them. She wore a long coat of mail, emblazoned with a simple device of sword and shield crossed that Quester recognized as the general symbol of the Salandaras. Her hair was dark, fairly straight, and tied back – visible because she wore no helm. She did have a bow and a longsword, with a shield leaning against a low wall nearby. She nodded as they came closer. "Passing through or staying?" she asked after they responded with similar nods.

"We may stay a day or two," Victoria answered, "though we are bound for the Freehold."

"Ah. Many go to Freehold," the woman said after a thoughtful pause. "Not so many here now. War, you know."

Ingram pursed his lips. "So many of those who usually live in town have gone to the Freehold?"

"Right. Safer there. Send workers, farmers if not needed, many warriors. Some stay, keep road safe; Bridgeway, Dragonkill need it."

"What of Artani? Is that road –" Victoria fell silent at the shake of the big woman's head.

"Artani… burned." Her voice was filled with both sadness and anger. "No open road to Empire of Mountain left. Adventurers say Avalanche Gap sealed."

"Great Balance," she murmured. "How, then will the Archmage's forces reach Hell's Edge?"

Quester exchanged quick thoughts with Ingram. "Our guess would be that he will bring them up the Nightsky River as far as Kheldragaard, then march just south of the southern reaches of the Broken Hills to join with the surviving Great Road north of Dalthunia; I doubt that Dalthunia's border guardians will try to oppose such a force as long as it is not trying to invade the country directly."

"I suppose. That will be a much harder journey, though."

"As our enemies doubtless intended." Ingram shrugged. "It isn't our problem, thank the Lady. Guardian… what is your name?"

"Kaydrin," she answered with another small bow.

"An honor to meet you, Guardian Kaydrin."

"Ha! Not true Guardian, just guarding here for moment. But thank you."

"You do the job, you get the title, I think. Is there still an open inn?"

"The Long Bar still open," she said. "Not close that unless invaders, and then will fight in bar doorway."

"Excellent!" Victoria brightened. "That's a sight worth seeing. You can just make out the start of it ahead."

Kaydrin stepped aside – not that she truly had to, with the hundred-yard width of the Great Road mostly open. "Enjoy. And good fortune."

"Good fortune to you as well," Victoria said, and the others echoed the phrase.

Once they were well past, Ingram glanced back and frowned, puzzlement clear on his face.

What is it, Ingram?

How in the name of the Gods is one Guardian supposed to keep the town safe and the road open?

Quester buzzed in amusement. I do not know, but I would guess that Guardian Kaydrin is likely not as alone as she appeared, and that she has methods of alerting the town close to hand. They have, as Lady Victoria said, been here for millennia; time for them and their many allies to have placed many subtle and powerful enchantments as well as physical defenses.

Better believe it, Urelle's mind-voice said. I did some looking around while you were talking and there's a whole wide band of territory absolutely saturated with magic, looks like it surrounds the whole city. I didn't try analyzing it, but I'd bet anything that there's all kinds of alarms and defenses just waiting for someone to be dumb enough to think they could just charge through the guard. She paused. Almost as intense as the defenses around Zarathanton, actually, which is scary. These people take their protection seriously.

"As well they should, with their history and interests," Victoria said. "And that means, having been passed inward by their guard and whatever unseen observers and spells there might be, we are much safer now than we have been."

She smiled, her teeth bright in the light of the setting sun. "Now look ahead and see one of the most amusing wonders of the world."

Quester focused his eyes forward again.

"Hello? Quester?"

He became aware that he had stopped dead in the middle of the road, staring in disbelief. "By the Mother. That is…"

"The Long Bar," Victoria said, her voice carrying the satisfaction of one who has seen the reaction they had hoped for.

"I'm not clear on what we're seeing," Ingram said. He pulled out his far-viewer device. "It looks like something sitting across the… Athena and Ares!"

Quester understood his friend's reaction all too well, as he still could not quite believe what he was seeing.

The Long Bar was a gigantic structure that straddled the entire Great Road, constructed of blocks of polished stone and massive, ancient beams of wood cut from trees that must have been some of the greatest monarchs of the forest in their day. Twin doors were swung wide – each door fifty yards across and well over thirty high, mounted on immense rollers to swing easily shut, but with signs that they had likely not been shut in years, if not decades. Within the vast tunnel of the interior, Quester could make out counters, storefronts, doors leading to the interior of the building on either side of the road, loading docks…

The gigantic building extended far down the road – at least a thousand feet, perhaps twice that, nearly as long as the Dragon's Palace was high.

"Great Mother," he buzzed again. "What need for a city have they? That is a city unto itself!"

"The Long Bar often is a city of its own, when there is no war," Victoria said. "You have seen how busy the Great Road is to the West in time of peace, have you not? This is scarcely less busy, for any traffic bound to or from the Empire, or to and from Dragonkill, must pass through here – and Salandar is the only truly safe location in several hundred miles in either direction."

She smiled again and nodded in the direction of the Bar. "And unlike many establishments within cities, the Long Bar is designed with accommodations of all types, including ones to serve beings vastly larger than ordinary humans. Accomodations including markets, private rooms, meeting rooms… and, of course, food and drink!"

She turned back towards the Long Bar, which now showed a faint glow from within as twilight began to fall. "Come, we will discover word of the road to the Freehold, and stay in the most comfortable beds for a hundred miles and more!"

Even though he found himself far more tolerant of variation in bedding than his friends, Quester approved of this course of action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 6 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.

GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 5

And of course where there are heroes there are usually villains...

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Chapter 5.

Raiagamor smiled in quiet amusement, watching Kerlamion, the so-called King of All Hells, directing the actions of his wide-flung plan. Kerlamion did not realize that the entirety of his actions, of the plan itself, were mere distractions, parts of a shadow-play by the true King, Raiagamor's King, to allow him to reach a goal that even Raiagamor could only guess.

No comments, my little tenant? he mused. No thoughts on seeing the world being directed to chaos, from your little country to the very farthest reaches of the world?

There was no answer. While he could still sense that "tenant" – the final remnant of the true Ares – where he had left it, sealed away within the vastness of his hungry soul – Ares had not spoken to him for a long time indeed. He had railed and pleaded and cursed for the first few months, and then, as he came to grasp his helplessness, spoken less and less. The last time had been … fourteen, fifteen years ago, a feeble protest at the planned murder of a generation of children.

It did not, of course, matter. The tiny core of Ares' essence existed as a salute and a demonstration to the King; what Raiagamor had done, in consuming Ares' power and yet, ultimately, leaving his essential self still alive and aware within Raiaga, was something only the King and the Elders could do. By succeeding in this, he had proven himself the equal of those uncountable years older than he – something that had pleased the King.

At this point, it was also something like saving a fine bottle of spirits for a special event; Ares was aging in helplessness, fury, and despair with every passing year, and would be a fine celebratory treat at the end. When the time came for even the symbols of the gods to be destroyed, Raiagamor would force Ares to watch… and then, as the remnant god fully understood the totality of Raiaga's victory, he would be consumed.

But Raiagamor needed no commentary from the defeated god to appreciate his unique vantage point on this conversation. Unlike the others participating in this conference – two of the Mazolishta, Erherveria, Balgoltha, and more – Raiagamor understood how to use the Scroll given him by his King to listen, to observe. That knowledge was a little gift given him by the King, a small thanks for the inspiration Raiagamor's own design had given the King in his current project… and one of inestimable value.

It allowed him to watch the unfolding of the scheme of a being who, Raiagamor admitted, was vastly superior to him in every way, and none more so than the ability to manipulate others, to direct their actions down the distance of centuries to culminate in precisely the conditions the King required. It was a breathtaking and, Raiagamor had to admit, an intimidating, perhaps even frightening, thing to watch from the outside, especially since Raiagamor had unwillingly come to the conclusion that it implied that his own actions might well be serving the King in ways he did not even guess.

It was not comfortable to realize that your grandest strategy might be only a single move in someone else's great game.

But it was entertaining. Especially since, for one outside the circle of plotters and manipulators, it was much easier to listen, to hear the hints of quiet deception, to sense that already, perhaps, the Grand Design of Kerlamion had begun to go ever-so-slightly awry. And with the Army of the Dragon now closing in, Kerlamion would have more immediate concerns demanding his attention, distracting him from the more distant problems.

Yes, the King's true plan must be already active, perhaps had been for centuries, but now was guiding the events in ways even the greatest of the Demons had not grasped. How long, I wonder, until the King no longer needs Kerlamion? He admitted he would give a great deal to see that conversation… and who knew? Perhaps he would.

At last, the conference was over, and one by one, the others faded from the view of the Scroll. As he reached out to clear his own, the King's eyes turned towards him. "Raiagamor," the calm, pleasant voice said, "bide a moment."

He immediately touched the Scroll in the manner that made it two-way. "Yes, my King?"

"I sensed your observation. Have you any thoughts?"

Raiagamor allowed himself a smile. "It is my thought that it will not be very long before you may have words with the King of All Hells that he will not wish to hear."

"Ha! Indeed, if all proceeds as planned, yes, that shall come to pass in not all that many months." A cheerful smile, so human, yet not. "And have you deduced my own goal?"

"The entirety of it? No, Majesty." Honesty was by far the best policy here. There was no telling exactly what the King wanted, why he had initiated this conversation, and the last thing Raiagamor could afford was to be trapped by his own desire to impress his perhaps-one-day Father. "It is evident to me now, from some of the other conversations I have heard, that the last Justiciar of Myrionar is the focus of your work, and that you have eliminated most of the other followers. You concentrate the power of her god, and weaken it at the same time. But the exact end… No."

"Excellent. If you have not yet seen it, I remain confident that no other shall before it is far too late to stop."

"Was that all, Majesty?" He did not think it had been nearly long enough for the King to need or want a further update, and little had changed; his plans progressed, but nothing remarkable had happened worthy of reporting.

"Yes. Thank you for your …" The King paused, as though a thought had struck him. It was just theatrical enough that Raiagamor knew it was purely an act – and that the King wanted him to know it.

This is going to be bad.

"Now that I think of it, there is one more thing, Raiaga," he said, in that smooth, deceptively comforting voice.

"How may I serve you, Majesty?" Best to be as careful as possible.

"Oh, no, it is not how you may serve me. It is that I have some news you may find useful."

It was here that the King's essential nature showed itself, even in pleasant-seeming conversation; he paused, the veriest hint of a smile on the human face, eyes glinting with amusement at the tension he was eliciting, and anticipation in whatever unpleasant news he planned to deliver.

But there is nothing for it but that I play along. "Yes, Majesty?"

"Well, you are of course aware that my agent in Zarathanton successfully escaped detection – quite impressive, really, given that he had assassinated the Sauran King in his own palace."

"Indeed, impressive. One of the Elders?"

"Oh, no, no. Not a child, certainly – a descendant of Virigan, in fact, named Alekivir, a mere twenty thousand years old or so." The last part was said without irony; even Raiagamor was more than twenty times older than Alekivir, and he was scarcely newborn compared to the incalculable age of the King and Queen, or even the Elders who had been born of the early days of their reign – and survived the first Great Battle. "Promising, though, with this success."

Another theatrical pause, which Raiagamor had expected; despite this, he found himself restraining his rising temper. "Where was I? Ah. Now, Alekivir has remained in the capital to keep an eye on things, so to speak. I have other spies in the Army of the Dragon King. In any event, one thing he does do is watch for interesting arrivals, especially those who seek the counsel of the King."

"But the Sauran King is not there," Raiaga said slowly. "Who is Regent?"

"Calladan, the head of the Academy," the King answered with a smile.

"Hm. A good choice on their part. Not a Sauran, but a well-known name, highly respected, capable." In a way, that was also good for the King's plans. He clearly had no intention of being bothered by unscheduled disruptions, and having a strong and intelligent substitute for the Sauran King would minimize the chance of someone using the current chaos to strike against the great City.

And, Raiagamor thought, it means the most powerful and experienced defender of the Academy… is not there. Useful for anyone seeking to fell that institution as well.

"Yes, quite. But that is of course only a side issue. The important thing is that a set of new petitioners appeared a short time ago – one that I think you would have found most intriguing."

Raiagamor raised his eyebrow. "Please, go on, Majesty."

"The most obvious point is that several of them were Camp-Bels."

So Deimos' attempt failed, at least in part. "Unsurprising, though somewhat disappointing. Still, they are outside the Shield, and no longer of much concern."

"Indeed, I did not expect that to be of overmuch interest to you. However, there were four in particular of these newcomers that might be of far more interest. Two of them were women… and not Camp-Bel."

"Not Camp-Bel?" That was odd. There had been, as far as he, Deimos, and Phobos had been able to ascertain, no other disappearances at the time of the Camp-Bels' departure. "Outsiders, then?"

"Outsiders indeed, but a most intriguing pair of outsiders. You see, their names are Victoria and Urelle Vantage."

That caused him to freeze. This cannot be coincidence. "Vantage. Related to…?"

"Victoria is her aunt. Urelle, her younger sister." The King's smile had a glint of deadly crystal in it.

"Interesting." More than interesting; anything connected to that family would have some tie to the King's own plans… which made it much more dangerous for anyone, even Raiagamor, to involve themselves. "But how would they have met the Camp-Bels? You phrase it as though they were traveling together, yet the Camp-Bels would have traveled from the southern shore to the north, while we know the Vantages had taken up residence near Zarathanton itself."

"Well, yes, they had," agreed the King. "But it was only a work of a few hours to ascertain that they had departed that residence perhaps within days of Kyri Vantage's own departure – and headed south." He smiled again. "But not alone. Two others travelled, and still travel, with them. The first is a diminutive youth indeed, with lavender hair, wielding a most distinctive weapon that rendered his identification easy: Ingram Camp-Bel."

There was a connection, and a peculiar one. He remembered Ingram vaguely, as the adopted child of the Clan who could never quite keep up with his adoptive family. A pathetic story.

But not so pathetic, not if he was now a companion of the Vantage women. "You said four."

"So I did." Now the smile was crystal-bladed within the human mouth. "The fourth is very interesting. An Iriistiik."

The pattern struck him like a blow, and he froze in order to prevent an all-too-revealing explosion. Only when he was certain that he was under control did he speak. "This is the group that was being tracked. The one Deimos encountered, that was protected by Berenike."

"It would certainly seem likely, yes."

"Then the woman of the prophecy may not be Berenike at all," he murmured, the connections becoming grimly clear. "Or… no, wait."

And then he could not restrain a snarl. "Those light-damned cards! It described a person… but did not ever say the description applied to only one person! Berenike is one threat – and the other is a Vantage."

The King grinned savagely. "A most interesting development, if so. And I would agree that it is the most direct and obvious conclusion, fitting all of the data we have to perfection… and, as you note, the bent of the Cards to tell the truth while misleading."

"Does this mean that their actions connect to yours, Majesty?" The very last thing he wanted was to be directly involved in the King's master-plan; in such a case, anyone – anyone at all – might be a disposable pawn. Perhaps – perhaps – the Queen his Mother might not be, but the King would hardly spare a thought before sacrificing Raiagamor under those conditions.

"Connect… perhaps. Everything connects in the end, Raiaga. Everything. That is the truth behind all Creation, really. But in the way you mean?"

The King paused then, and for a long moment Raiagamor saw the King truly thinking. His eyes flared a blank green and he sat, unmoving, for many seconds before the alien color faded and he looked, once more, human.

The human smile, too, returned. "No. Not in the way you feared, Raiaga. The connection is perhaps not coincidence, but it is not of my design, nor in any way likely to impact it, so long as neither you nor they approach Evanwyl or the hidden land Kaizatenzei – something I think is most unlikely indeed, given that your interests are already fixed most firmly in Aegeia."

"Have you any other intelligence regarding those four?"

"There was one more little tidbit of interest, yes," the King said, raising his hand in preparation for ending the communication. "Their current destination is Salandar."

The scroll returned to silvery blankness before Raiagamor had quite absorbed the meaning of those words.

When the meaning did penetrate, he was caught between a gasp of disbelief and a roar of inarticulate fury. Which was fortunate, because the balance between the two gave him a brief moment to regain control of his emotions, clamping down the steely bands of his will upon the raging fire that always burned within his heart.

His eyes went, unwillingly, to the map he had left floating in air a short distance away. Salandar winked from near its center, and just to the south…

The Freehold.

 

 

 

 

 

The post GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 5 appeared first on Ryk E. Spoor, Author, Gamer, Geek God.