The Frontier, Day 3
[written by shylarah & Lovejoy]
In the three days since their departure, Ziotea had spent most of her time with Rodion. Some of it they spent talking, some in companionable silence. Sometimes she watched him work, and sometimes she brought her art supplies over, or one of her books. The important thing was that they spent the time close, where she could feel the brush of his ether. After her week in Iddin-Mar, they both needed the time to reaffirm their bond.
There was more to it than that, at least for Ziotea. Many times she thought about bringing up that all-too-brief kiss at the Rising ball, but it still didn’t feel like the proper moment. The thought of becoming something more than just friends appealed to her, but it scared her too, just a little. Eventually she’d have to face that, but perhaps not just yet.
Early on the third morning she roused, dressed, and sought out Galahad. Father Oren had made it clear that he thought they should keep their encounters in old Omestris to themselves, but Ziotea didn’t agree. She’d considered just telling the whole warband despite Father Oren’s request, but in the end she agreed to give him a few days, and then tell just her warleader. Galahad could decide what they did with the information from there.
She found him at the bottom of the engine tower in the generator room. It was a strange place, more like a chapel than a room of machinery. Galahad was staring at the URA in an obvious trance, eyes aglow. He looked dishevelled and in need of sleep, and that surprised her. He’d always tried to be calm and collected in the past, and she found his unkempt appearance disconcerting.
What could possibly be bothering him so much, she wondered. There was really only one way to find out.
Ziotea laid a heavy gauntlet on his shoulder and gave Galahad a shake.
In a flash his hand was at the handle of his blade. It was the same lighting-quick motion she had seen thousands of times on the practice yard, but there was something different this time. Fear. When he looked at her, the diamond-hard courage that had glinted in his eyes since he was a child was gone. For an instant, Galahad was afraid, but as soon as he saw her ember eyes looking up at him, his face returned to its characteristic placidity..
He looked away from her, a faint redness blossoming in his cheeks. He could not let his siblings see him that way. Galahad was the warleader. They looked to him for his strength and resolve.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, unable to face her.
“We need to talk,” Ziotea replied evenly. “About what happened in Omestris. And, apparently, about when you last got some sleep. I thought I only had to keep track of Rodion, but it seems I was mistaken. What gives?”
Galahad smirked.
He turned to her, giving his warsibling his full attention. Some part of him still remained in the machine, he knew, but Ziotea was more important. She rarely came to him for anything and it was uncommon for Galahad to speak to her in turn. Ziotea was as integral a part of their family as anyone else, but there had always been a distance between them. Ever since that day. Since Magnus.
“I’m busy, Ziotea. As much as I would like to hear about what you and the Leviathan ranger got up to in Omestris, I have important work to do.”
Ziotea’s eyes narrowed, and her voice hardened. “I wasn’t asking. This is important too.” She paused a moment, making sure Galahad was listening, before she continued. “We were attacked in Iddin-Mar, by what initially posed as SA men but turned into crystalline beasts--”
“What did you say?”
The Phoenix warleader grabbed her by the pauldrons, a feverish glint in his eyes.
“I said we were attacked by blue crystal giants,” she replied, using a hand to dislodge his grip on her. “There’s more to it, a lot more--”
“Show me,” he urged her in a commanding tone that sounded foreign coming from his lips.
He turned from her and approached the URA, his footsteps echoing in the dark empty halls of the engine room. The white glowing sphere seemed to react to his presence and pulsed back to life, waves of golden light dancing across its mirror-like surface.
“I assume Rodion told you about Him,” Galahad whispered, his restless eyes gazing at their reflection in the white sheen of the URA’s outer shell.
“No.” Ziotea took a step back. “I mean, yes he told me, but no, I’m not going to show you that way. I don’t like the hold it seems to have on you.”
“Zi…” he began. He only called her that when he needed something from her. “You don’t know what happened in Lanostre. What we saw there. We are dealing with forces that we are not prepared for. The URA is a weapon and I mean to use it to protect our warband… our family.”
Without warning, Galahad reached out and touched the engine.
A quiet explosion of light enveloped the two of them. The engine room, the sounds of the ether coursing through the steel pipes, the low hum of the frontier winds pushing against the arks -- all of it faded to silence.
When the two inquisitors opened their eyes, the sky was awash with death and the dark ice all around them was littered with the bodies of the fallen. Soldiers were screaming, running across the ice, firing at winged creatures made of azure crystal.
“This isn’t the worst of it,” he said. Galahad didn’t wait for her to answer as he walked forward, his form a spectral ghost among the broken bodies on the ice. Ahead, the Black Glacier awaited them.
Ziotea looked around, oddly impassive. It was a gruesome sight and yet it moved her less than the sight of the Black Glacier itself. Still, she followed after Galahad.
When they reached their destination, the shadow of the Glacier darkened the ice, making it appear as dark as shadow. The wall of the Glacier, scarred with pulsing red veins, hummed its eternal song as what looked like Galahad, Tatiana, Astraea and two other inquisitors faced off against a group of towering crystalline knights.
Just as before, the knights suddenly explode in a flash of ice and ether, and the Man in Black made his appearance.
“Him.” Galahad spoke, his eyes flashing with hatred and fear. Ziotea’s grip tightened on her spear, but she knew better than to try to attack. This was a memory, and there was nothing she could do to change it.
Galahad grew quiet as the mysterious man spoke of the purpose of this attack being only to destroy the Varyan garrison fleet patrolling around Lanostre’s coastline, so as to give the apostate, Father Dara, a free path to escape from the continent… and head eastward.
"Warleader. Do not interfere in my work. Within moments the Varyan fleet will be purged from this world and my fleet will continue eastward to our destination. You and I are heading in the same direction, but I plead with you. If you value the lives of those under your command, do not follow in my path. Let this be our final meeting."
The voice was as clear to him then as it had been in Galahad’s vision.
He turned to Ziotea then, his breathing erratic, and pointed at the Man in Black.
“This is our enemy. Whoever this man is, he is allied with Father Dara and commands an entire fleet of arks that can easily cut a path of destruction through a Varyan blockade. When we come across him once again, we will be ready... Not like that day in Lanostre.”
“A fleet of arks? Where would he even get them?” Ziotea was confused and concerned. “But those things, they look a lot like what I encountered.” She hesitated, then nodded. “Fine, I’ll show you. But I’ll start at the beginning. I think context is important.”
Galahad nodded, letting out a breath. As he did, Ziotea focused on Omestris, and the scenery shifted to the greens and golds of Idden-Mar. She lead the way through the ruins, towards the elevator, explaining as she did the identity of the woman they’d met there and most of what they’d been told. She left out the identity of the children, treating them as incidental, but she covered what they’d been told of the azure circle, the involvement of the Aspects, the history Essa showed them in the water --- all of it. She didn’t know enough to draw conclusions, and if she left something out it might end up being important.
At the elevator stood her memory-self and Father Oren, discussing what to do about the three soldiers that shouldn’t exist. Ziotea stepped into the elevator with them, motioning Galahad to join her.
From there things proceeded as she remembered. The confrontation with the three false soldiers, and their wrenching, twitching transformation.
“There, see? Not quite what you encountered. But similar -- and Lady Essa thinks an Aspect is behind it.”
Ziotea might as well have been a thousand miles away. Galahad was awestruck by the twisted giants. They were the same. Different forms, but the exact same as the knights from Lanostre. What was the connection?
When the smoke had cleared from Ziotea’s explosion, the bunker was a mess. Large crystal fragments were embedded on the walls and the furniture had been shattered into splinters. The revelations were still spinning in his head and Galahad found it hard to stand. He felt weak. Whether it was his fatigue or the realization he and his warsiblings would be facing down a massive *unknown* threat that had them squarely in its sight, he was uncertain.
He allowed himself to collapse on the floor, propping himself against one of the walls. It felt good to let the weakness and the fear take him over.
“It is all connected. The demons from Lanostre, the Man in Black, the soldiers from Iddin-Mar…” and worst of all he thought, “the Aspect.”
They were said to be angels, direct agents of the Remnants themselves. If an Aspect of Asherahn, or any other God, was aiming to use them for its own purposes, the entire warband and expedition would be in mortal danger.
“This woman, the apostate… where is she now?”
“Probably still down in the tunnels where we found her. She didn’t seem like she intended to leave any time soon,” Ziotea replied. “Do you want to see her?”
“No. We musn’t wait any more time. There are other leads we must pursue.”
Galahad reached out his hand. He felt too weak, too unlike himself, to stand up on his own. It took Ziotea a moment to realize this and help him up, with a single solid pull. “Other leads?” she asked. “Galahad, you need to
rest. So help me if I have to tie you to a bed I’m making you take a nap after the meeting with the crew.”
The Phoenix warleader breathed out, the air from his lungs fogging in the darkening engine chamber. The URA was powering down, and as its strange eerie light dimmed, their reflections faded from its exterior shell. The reality of it still terrified of him but also filled him with a strange yearning-- to learn, to overcome what awaited them. If what Rodion said was true, the URA was a broken fragment of the Remnant known as Agaetys, the lost shard who took the form of the Black Glacier eons ago. Once, in a time forgotten, it existed as the Ice Titan’s memory, but now, this lone white pearl was all the life that remained of Him.
“Asherahn isn’t the only dead god we know about,” Galahad said, gazing at the motionless sphere as it floated in front of them. “Mother Indira knew that the Karamzina would be home to this machine, and that we would find out the truth. She
left it for us.”
He turned to her. His eyes frowning as he remembered the nights when Ziotea would be gone from the Phoenix compound, training alongside Tatiana and a handful of others in what would become Indira’s Summoning Circle.
“Did she ever… mention anything about this? Did anything ever seem odd to you about her?”
“Mother Indira? She and I never got along.” Ziotea’s eyes narrowed in distaste. “I can’t say there was anything strange about her, though. You’d have to ask Tatiana, or the Leviathans.”
The warleader frowned. “Tatiana doesn’t speak much of the Circle and the Leviathans are loyal to their teacher. It will be difficult to pry information from them. In any case, Indira is connected to all of this. Dara was her student as well… and the Man in Black was protecting his escape.”
Galahad turned away from the URA and began to make his way to the elevator.
“We must keep this within the warband. For now we’ll attend to the Commander and her war council. Afterwards I will convene a meeting with our warsiblings and we will decide on how to proceed.”
“Alright. And then you are taking a nap -- I mean it, Galahad, you look a disaster. Go clean up before the meeting, or the SA will give us a hard time.”
He smiled. It was a genuine one, something that was rare to see on his face.
As the lift doors shut close behind them, Galahad leaned on the railing and closed his eyes.
“The world has gone crazy. Here you are, telling *me* to get some rest. Usually it’s the other way around. But… I will try, Zee. I will try and put aside the fact that there are not one, but two dead gods we must contend with, and I will try and get some sleep.”
He was tired, he admitted. Perhaps a quick rest would do him some good. In many ways the fate of the entire expedition lay on his shoulders, a fact that he was altogether comfortable with. Since the day his warsiblings had elected him warleader, he knew it would be solely up to him to make certain each and every one of them safely returned from battle. He had grown calloused with that reality, so much so that in time, he began to view them less like family, and more like delicate pawns under his command. Distance was a necessary evil, a comfort. But sometimes, he was reminded of those early days in the Maw-- the eight of them huddling together for warmth. A warband-in-making, children lost and children sent away, freezing in the dark with the fullness of winter collected on their naked skin, swearing an oath that the night would not outlast any of them…
He smiled at her, and remembered then. She was his sister. And it felt good to remember that she cared.
~~~
At the meeting Ziotea gave Ragnar a small smile as he hurried in. She listened to the discussion in thoughtful silence. More monsters was fine with her -- there was only so much she could do to keep her skills sharp on the Karamzina while worried about damaging the ark. And then Astraea said that they couldn’t use powerful ether, and Ziotea threw her hands up in disgust. She fumed quietly while Viveca proposed scouting parties before finally speaking up. “I’d gladly go scouting. Farther away from the edge my combat style should be less of a problem.”
Father Ragnar nodded at Ziotea, and when no one else spoke he cleared his throat. “I would also like to volunteer for this reconnaissance mission. You’ll need an aegisbearer. After all, who else is going to keep you lot from freezing to death?” Ragnar happily announced, his high excited voice in contrast to the calm tone of his fellow inquisitors and SA officers. He flashed a challenging grin to Galahad and Tatiana, who both sat near the head of the table.
Hassan smirked. “They say the Narrow Gates are home to the coldest temperatures ever recorded. Think I’ll sit this one out,” he said with a half-yawn, leaning back on his chair before turning to Ilya.
“What about you, Bjornley? One of your warsiblings is going out there. You’re not going to volunteer?”
“Mother Vivica is more than capable of handling herself,” the Leviathan sniper answered while swiveling slowly in his chair, not bothering to meet Hassan’s penetrating glare. “I will support her from a distance, as I’ve always done.”
Galahad sighed to himself. He had been silent the entire meeting, his tired eyes focusing on the table, seemingly unaware of anything happening around him.
“You’re not going,” he said suddenly, turning to Ragnar.
Confusion and anger flashed across the young Muraadan’s face.
“What the hell do you mean I’m not going? They need a protector,” the diminutive inquisitor spat back. Galahad was his warleader, but Ragnar didn’t care. His stupid brother-in-arms wasn’t going to take this from him.
“One of us was killed by these things. An
inquisitor, Ragnar. You are too important to the warband to risk sending on a scouting mission,” the warleader replied with the all-too familiar calm but endlessly aggravating tone Ragnar had heard all throughout his childhood.
“Do you really think I won’t make it back?”
As warleader, it was important for Galahad to be honest with his warsiblings, and yet, he found himself unable to answer Ragnar. The silence told the young aegisbearer all he needed to know however.
“Well, if I don’t go, they’ll freeze. The Narrows are colder than anywhere else the inquisition, nay, all of humanity has ever been. Whoever leaves this ark without me accompanying them is going to die in minutes.”
“Not exactly. It’s true this ark wasn’t equipped for far-ranging scouting expeditions, but we do have an unexpected asset which will allow us to reconnoiter those trapped arks without putting you in unnecessary danger.”
Unnecessary danger? Ragnar glared at the Phoenix warleader. For years they had been true brothers, among the closest within the warband, and for just as long they had competed against each other. Galahad with his mastery of beautiful and deadly offensive arcana, Ragnar with his flawless control of an aegis-- these were their weapons, and since they were children the two had wielded them against each other in a bitter rivalry to claim the glory that each believed they deserved. Losing out to Galahad as warleader had been a blow, and it was Ragnar’s obsession to make up for it. This was going to be his chance…
“If you’re referring to Father Ilya’s ether-racer, the fancy black ship docked in the Karamzina’s hold, then maybe you aren’t as up to date on things as you should be, Galahad,” Ragnar snarked, doing his best to mimic one of Hassan’s devilish grins. “Rodion and I inspected it this morning. That ship may have one of T’sarae’s modern hearth engines keeping it warm, and it just
might save its passengers from the cold, but according to Father Ilya it has just endured a three-day journey from the western coast of Magnagrad to the docks of Cero, all without stopping once in order to allow Ilya to arrive on time for the expedition. Its engines were burning ether the entire journey, and well, they’re absolutely shot. Rodion can back me up on this.” Ragnar looked to the T’saraen artificer excitedly.
Rodion had deigned to move his seat to a darkened corner before the meeting started, and he had to lean forward to be seen in the light of the overhead lamp. He stared at Ragnar, and then at Galahad, annoyed to be drawn into their childish rivalry.
“Ragnar has the right of it,” he sighed. “The Sword of Dawn’s engines are in dire need of repair. Father Ilya signed off on it this afternoon.”
Galahad nodded in grim acceptance, sighing silently.
“Whoever ventures out into that cold, they will need Ragnar,” Rodion added before sliding back into the shadows of the room.
Member
CollectorOfMyst
Nightbringer