GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapters 23 and 24

So our heroes finally get back home... and arrive to a warm welcome!

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Chapter 23.

Ingram gripped his anai-k'ota tighter. "You ready, Urelle?"

"Almost." She held up her hands, gazing through a triangle made between them. "Ah! There's the Seal!"

"Good," Silvertail said – in his rat form, sitting on the radiantly beautiful Princess Holy Aura's right shoulder. Cold rain did nothing to dim either Ingram's spirits or the glory of the four Apocalypse Maidens. He felt somewhat guilty for staring, but he'd seen Urelle having a hard time not looking too, and since they were leaving it wouldn't matter much. "We will guard while you open the way and depart. Hopefully, nothing will interfere. At least this rain discourages casual wandering through Central Park."

I would have preferred one of the more nearby alleys," Quester thought candidly. Limited access, more easily defensible. This copse may be out of an immediate line of sight, but trouble could come from any direction.

Victoria shrugged. True enough, but it should take only a few minutes, and I am reasonably confident of our allies' abilities to protect us.

Given that Urelle says the four of them have a power level at least equal to Berenike? By the Lady, I'd hope they could defend us for a few minutes!

Ingram saw through Urelle's eyes for an instant, glimpsing the eternally-in-flux yet forever-fixed Seal as she prepared to wrench it open.

"Ready!" she called.

"Trayne, it was an honor to meet you and work with both you and your … protégés," Victoria said.

"Likewise, Victoria. It may be unlikely, but if ever you find yourself in our reality again, please look us up."

"I assure you, I will."

A quick round of handshakes and goodbyes followed. Ingram found himself somewhat glassy-eyed after receiving an emphatic hug from the six-foot tall Princess Radiance Blaze, who reminded Ingram in some ways of Urelle's big sister Kyri. He noticed Urelle also looked similarly dazed after her own hug from Tsunami Reflection, the perfected vision that was the Maiden form of Cordelia Ingemar.

But she shook it off and gestured to the now-visible glow. "Now, let's go!"

Literally as the Seal began to open, three distant, emphatic thump! noises reached Ingram's ears, and three canisters dropped in the center of their circle, passing through the Seal's immaterial substance; even as they landed, the canisters began spewing a thin white mist everywhere.

A touch of a sharp, astringent smell tickled Ingram's nose, and even as he thought poison!, the world tilted up beneath him. Distantly he heard shouts and a flash of light, but even that faded away…

*****

Slowly he blinked his way back to consciousness, feeling Quester's own confused, dulled perceptions gradually sharpening. For a moment he didn't move, assessing his own sensations. Where am I? Am I tied up?

Feeling nothing but warmth from what he presumed was the sun, grass and earth beneath him, and no sign of any restraints, he took a deeper breath and carefully levered himself up to a sitting position.

"Good! You're finally up!" Urelle said.

His head felt like someone had inserted a wooden wedge between his temples, but otherwise he didn't feel too bad. Raising his eyes, he saw Victoria and Urelle seated on some nearby rocks, a small fire before them heating up a pot of something that smelled more than merely edible, despite a touch of nausea. "What happened?"

"Someone – I would guess this 'OSC' they told us about – ambushed us just as we were leaving," Urelle said. "Like we'd discussed with Silvertail, he and the Maidens had a much better chance to deal with the OSC, and if they were after us, well, best not to be there, so I got Aunt Vicky to grab you two up and then finished opening the Seal. Ended up here and we've been waiting a few hours for you to wake up."

"Wait, why didn't you and Victoria fall to their poison vapors?"

"After the time that Ares' thugs took us down that way?" Urelle demanded. "I've had an air-purity spell on conditional ever since. And I guess something like that is an old story for Aunt Vicky."

"Oh, certainly," Victoria said. "One of my little bangles is specifically made to prevent that sort of attack from working."

"Fortunate indeed," Quester stood with careful precision. "Perhaps we should look into such things, Ingram."

"When we get the chance, I guarantee it. Twice is two times too many." He glanced into a pouch. "I have a mask that would work, but I can't wear it all the time, and that stuff worked fast."

Victoria mimed something dropping from her hands. "Indeed; you fell like stones. But all's well, in any event. I'm sure our friends could deal with the threat; I did not see any of them falling when we left."

"Nothing's bothered us since arrival? That's promising," Ingram stretched, and glanced toward the pot. "Mmm, that's the leftovers of that stew we had a while back."

"Yes, I thought it was a good time to unseal it. It's almost ready," Victoria said, giving it a quick stir. "Why don't you go over there and take a look at the view? It's well worth a few moments."

Looking around, Ingram could see they were in a small, sheltered circle of stone, with a mostly grassy floor to the circle and a few patches of pretty flowers. Following Victoria's indicated direction, he and Quester exited the dell and found themselves not more than ten feet from the edge of a… cliff?

Then he looked up and around. "By the Founder and the Lady…" he breathed.

Illumined by a golden sun in a clear blue sky, beautiful, towering mountains, slopes covered with greenery, and with sparkles of distant towers and domes just visible near their bases, drifted like clouds. Beneath, the immense floating islands tapered off in irregular cones of rock and earth, as though they had been roughly cut from the ground of the native world. Dazzling glitters and plumes showed where rivers and streams plunged off into the airy abyss.

Ingram cautiously stepped to the cliff edge and looked down. Perhaps, far below, there was a hint of some surface, or perhaps it was merely a darkening of distance. But in all other directions were the great floating mountains, some barely the size of hillocks, others so huge that Ingram could not even guess at their size – they seemed to be entire sections of a mighty mountain range.

Flocks of gorgeously-plumed birds streaked out over the edge of the floating mountain they stood upon, and streamed onward towards one of their neighbors. Other creatures, some birdlike, others more sinuous, swam or flew through the air, and in the distance Ingram thought he could see something of less organic, more solid lines, a vessel that somehow flew across the immensity of the aerial ocean.

"You were right, Aunt Victoria," he said. "That's well worth seeing."

"Astounding, isn't it? But Urelle has something even more astounding."

He trotted back to the little circular dell. "What is it?"

Urelle's smile was filled with relief. "This is it, Ingram! The Seal's different here, I can feel it! This is the end of the world-sheaf!"

"Wh… Ares and Athena! You mean this is really the end – we can get home now?"

"And," she said, "if I haven't just been leading us on a tail-chase, not just home. We'll come out inside Aegeia!"

"Then let's open the Seal and get –"

"Wait and calm yourself, young man," Victoria said, and Quester indicated his agreement by seating himself nearby. "We have no idea what may await us in Aegeia… but it seems exceedingly unlikely that another hour or so will make a difference. So why not first have a meal, now that you are awake, and all of us prepare as though we go to a great battle before passing through?"

Ingram restrained his own worry and urgency. Victoria was – as usual – correct. Being fed and then fully prepared before emerging into whatever Aegeia was like now? That was the smartest thing he'd heard anyone say in a while.

So he sat down, accepted a plate, and ate two servings of Victoria's stew. Then he took out his full battle gear – the hidden armor, his weapons, additional protection for arms and legs, the more useful technological devices – and made sure he was ready. Urelle was layering on spells of protection – not just for herself, but for the rest – and Victoria and Quester were ensuring all their defenses and weapons were prepared.

Finally Ingram looked around, and nodded. "We're ready as we'll ever be," he said. "Urelle?"

"Grab on for the last of these rides," she said, no longer nervous, but confident through the experience of fifty trips across different worlds, "we're going home!"

The Seal yawned wide and they plummeted one last time into a spinning abyss…

 

 

Chapter 24.

Victoria only stumbled slightly this time, feeling her feet strike a flat and solid surface and instantly adjusting to her new position. The others, too, did not fall.

She experienced a momentary sense of déjà-vu, recognizing that they were once more standing in an alleyway. However, unlike their visit to New York City, it was daytime, the alley was cleaner, and the architecture was very different. The pavement, too, was not the strange black, tarry material she had seen before, but was carefully fitted stone blocks – marble, she thought, which was a striking and surprising choice for what seemed an ordinary side street. "Are we… home, Urelle?"

"I think so… but I can check. If we're not…" Her niece focused and ran through a now-familiar ritual. Her smile broadened. "Yes! There's no sense of the Seal anywhere at all within my range – that's miles – and that means we have to be back on Zarathan!"

 

"Back on Zarathan is wonderful," Quester said dryly, though his scent was filled with a quiet pleasure, "but can we be sure we are now inside Aegeia?"

"Yes, we can," Ingram said, another slowly-growing smile lighting up his face as he pointed down the alley.

Framed between the straight, simple walls of the alley were two statues. The one on their right was that of a man, immensely broad of shoulder and mighty of arm but whose figure was bent, somewhat hunched of shoulder, with one leg in a golden brace. His face was square, seamed not with age but with focus and concentration and determination – not a handsome face, but one that would still hold the attention of any who looked upon it, and he wore a leather workman's apron. Golden eyes glittered in his ebony face – for the statue was carven of pure, polished black marble – and he stood before a great anvil, one hand gripping a great hammer, the other holding the hand of the statue beside him.

That second statue was of a woman, tall and straight and proud of figure, dressed in a flowing gown of white and gold; she herself was carven of gold-brown marble, with a face so flawlessly beautiful that even Victoria had to look twice to assure herself that it was real. She, too, was smiling, her hand gripping that of the man next to her. Before her on the anvil was a bouquet of roses, flowers of ruby with emerald stems, and her hand held a polished mirror of purest silver.

"Aphrodite and Hephaestus," Ingram said, his smile trembling, eyes shimmering with tears of joy. "Welcome to Aegeia, all of you… welcome to Amoni Agapis, the Anvil of Perfect Love!" He turned to Urelle and hugged her, lifting her up and spinning her around despite his slight form. "You did it, you did it, Urelle!"

Urelle laughed and hugged him back. "I did! By Myrionar, I guess I really did!"

"You did indeed, and we are all very proud of you, and grateful. And what fortune, to have come out in one of the cities. I was thinking we might have to hike miles just to discover where we were." She tried to recall the maps Ingram had shown them. "We are still far in the north of Aegeia, yes?"

"Oh, definitely. Several hundred miles still to Aegis, which is where Ares is going to be now. But if the war's not too far along we might be able to take a boat down the rivers, straight to Aegis itself." Ingram reached into his pack and got out his Camp-Bel sigils, and also affixed two little tabs or symbols to his collar – a pair of open books.

"What are those?" Victoria asked. She remembered seeing the same tabs on one or two of the other Camp-Bels – the Captain before he’d died, certainly, and the one – Kerridan – that they had found dead in the jungle.

He glanced down, realized she was looking at his collar and touched the tabs. "These? They represent a member of the Captain's Crew. I don't know if I quite qualify, really, but Pennon said I should keep the Lieutenant's; until I found someone who could say, for sure, I had the right to wear them. And if we run into any Camp-Bels, this will make them listen hard, even if they remember me as the 'failure'."

He turned. "Let's go! If we can make contact with Clan representatives here, we could be on our way in just a few hours."

As they started out of the alley, Urelle asked, "But your Clan fled or hid, right? Will there be any of them… well, here?"

"They'll have left marks, traces for other Camp-Bels and no one else. I can read them." He touched the scanning device called an ISNDAU. "Some of the marks will be only detectable with this, or magic of a really specific sort."

Victoria stopped as they exited the alley, and felt her stomach tightening. "Ingram… this is the central square of the city. So… where are all the people?"

Ingram froze, and then glanced around with increasing concern. "Lady's Wisdom. I don't know. This place should be crowded at this hour. A siege, maybe? Nonessential personnel would be staying in their homes if a battle was underway. Everyone else would be at the walls, or barracks near the Palace of the Hammer and Rose."

Victoria gestured for silence and then turned slowly, very slowly, listening.

The tension increased, accompanied by a tingling, creeping feeling of dread. She heard… nothing. Not distant cries of battle, not shouted orders; no movement, large or small.

And the silence was more profound than the mere absence of the citizens. As she listened, sharpening her senses as much as possible, and as her friends's faces began to show their own awareness of something terribly wrong, she realized that the only sounds she heard were those of the wind – a whisper of cloth rippling in gentle motion, the creak of a door far away, and perhaps, just barely at the limit of sensing, a trickling of water.

But no cries of birds, no flapping of wings; no sound of dogs or horses or riding-lizards; no scuttling of rats; not even the buzzing and humming of flies and bees and beetles.

"Great Mothers," Quester buzzed in quiet horror. "This place is dead."

"But how?" Urelle asked, her hands now poised to grip and control the fabric of reality. "I don't see any blood, no bodies, no signs of struggle!"

Ingram and Quester looked at each other. "I think –"

"Wait." Victoria knew her voice sounded terribly off even as she spoke, but in this case that was good; the others paused instantly. "Quietly, everyone. Just in case something else is listening." Communicate only through the link for now, she added.

Understood, Quester replied instantly. Ingram, what were you saying?

     I think we should check a few of the houses around the square. There may be clues as to what happened.

An excellent idea, Victoria thought. Together. No one goes anywhere alone.

     Yes. Quester's mental voice was too controlled, showing his own tension. Let us not make ourselves vulnerable.

They surveyed the buildings, all of them lit with an incongruous cheerfulness in the brilliant sunshine. Victoria was aware of the intensity of the sunlight, the pressure of heat on her face, the trickle of a drop of sweat being absorbed, for the moment, in the roots of her hair. Something about the situation had already awakened all her instincts, and her senses were hyperaware, making everything she sensed more intense.

We have to do some talking, or our assumed observers will guess that we have a way to communicate outside of talking, Urelle pointed out.

You're right, of course, Victoria responded.

"Let's check this house," Ingram said quietly. "Maybe we'll learn something."

Yes. We can speak the obvious words, but anything we guess or deduce that is non-obvious, we keep to ourselves, Quester said.

The "house" was a mansion, obviously a dwelling for someone rich, highly placed, or both. "Ingram, you've been here before," Victoria said, keeping her voice low. "Whose home is this?"

"It was a few years ago… but last I knew, this was Sideras' home. He's… call him the boss of the armorers for the city."

Set back from the square itself under a stone awning supported by white marble pillars, the door was a large, polished red-brown wood with silver inlay and an elaborate silver handle. Ingram tried it, found the door locked, but that was little impediment to people of their experience. The door swung open.

The interior was very dimly lit, mostly by light from the open door, but there was no sign of anyone, or anything, inside. Senses as on-edge as they were, Victoria strained her hearing; nothing at all, save – perhaps – a momentary, nearly inaudible sigh or hiss.

"Stay alert, everyone," Urelle murmured. She gestured, and a sphere of pure white light floated up, hovering over them.

With the additional illumination, they could see that the door opened on a broad entrance hall, floor inlaid with some symbol – perhaps the personal family crest – a spiral staircase straight ahead, and three other exits, one left, one right, and one beyond the staircase.

The archway to the right opened into a sitting room. Victoria felt a tap on her shoulder, followed Ingram's pointing finger.

She knelt down, looking at the cracked goblet on the floor. A deep burgundy stain formed a graceful arc across the carpet, with a curlicue at the end nearest the goblet. An overturned chair and small table were nearby, along with a scattering of papers.

"Someone was sitting here. Something startled them and they jumped to their feet, upsetting the table, sending the glass flying," Ingram muttered, echoing her own thoughts. "I don't see much other sign of struggle, though, do you?"

"No," she said slowly. No bloodstains. No broken furniture. No damage to walls, or the window to the side there. Nothing knocked off the shelves or other tables.

I do not like this. Quester's thoughts were so controlled as to be mechanical.

"This way," Ingram whispered, leading them back to the hall and through the central exit, which led to a hallway. His face was drawn and grim.

Victoria was aware of a vibration within her own chest. By the Balance, she thought to herself in astonishment, I am terrified already.

Ingram paused by the next door. Dining room here. Let's… look.

A creeping cold chill washed over Victoria, for she was suddenly absolutely certain of what she would see.

The dining room had a circular table in the center, with places for nine people. Five of the places were set in a close-spaced arc, clearly for a family or close friends dining together. The scene was illuminated in soft colors by a beautiful, broad stained-glass picture window spanning most of the far wall.

Food lay on the plates – gravelseed rolls, pingrain with vegetable mix, skewers of marinated and grilled meat, fruit pastries – and not as though waiting for the diners. Bites had been taken of various dishes; glasses were half-full, one of them with clear lip-marks from someone whose lipshine was wearing off; utensils lay scattered, out of place, as though dropped suddenly. It had not happened recently – decay had already well-advanced on much of the food – but it had happened with terrible suddenness.

"Great Balance," she said, making it half a prayer. Dear Myrionar, this cannot be what it seems. Please, Myrionar, Chromaias, great Terian, do not allow it to be!

Ingram and Quester stood frozen, staring, and then looking around, gripping their weapons.

Something chuckled.

Victoria whirled around, but saw nothing, just the empty doorway.

Another snicker, and the four of them turned, seeking the source; once more, there seemed to be nothing there, no possible location for the sound.

"Not that easy to hide," Urelle said, sounding unsettled as well. Her fingers danced across the air in time to whispered words, and a glow pulsed out through the room and beyond.

This garnered a laugh, a laugh that came from all around them. "Not that easy to find."

The voice was deep, unsettling, gelid, gurgling; not a sound ever made by human or even Iriistiik, and it spoke with palpable malice and vicious amusement.

And Victoria's heart stuttered, a stab of agonized panic, for she knew that voice.

"Victoria Vantage," it said, and an edge of spiteful eagerness was now clear in that rippling bass, "how lovely to see you again!"