“But Ameras is correct: Humanity gave up the great advantage the New Horizon gave you in order to preserve all life on Callidore. It was a sacrifice, and one that cost your race dearly over the next six hundred years, but you paid it. And that preserved your colony, for had you even attempted to do it, the Vundel would have expelled you all. Or slain you out of hand. It was that serious of a threat.”
“Both of our races placed our most dangerous weapons out of easy reach,” Ameras agreed, “for the sake of the entire world. That was commendable wisdom. As dire as things might look right now, that is not necessarily enough justification to open the vault. Or bring back your great ship,” she added. “That, too, is wisdom.”
“If not now, my lady, when?” asked Tyndal, with a snort. “Half a million humani have died since the invasion. Thousands of Alka Alon. Tens of thousands of Tal Alon. Hundreds of thousands of gurvani,” he argued. “All because the Enshadowed lust for power. They have proven they have no compunctions about the allies that they will seek in that quest. We are willing to stand against them if you do not. But if we are to have a chance to prevail, we need your assistance!”
Tyndal spoke passionately, and with the perspective of a man who has seen his home ravaged, ruined, and occupied. I forget, sometimes, that my jovial former apprentice was a native to Boval Vale. I’d been there six months, when Sheruel’s hordes came pouring into the valley. He’d lived there his entire life.
“I’ve not been on the front lines, much,” Ormar chimed in, “but while I appreciate the staunch defense our magi have made, from any objective perspective we are getting our asses kicked around the village commons,” he affirmed. “Things would be worse without us. But they aren’t that great with our best efforts,” he reported.
“The terrors of the gurvani have been awful, my lady,” Travid agreed, quietly. “My people have fought them on our frontiers since the invasion. I’ve faced them, myself,” he admitted, troubled. “The suffering of the Wilderfolk and the Avalanti is appalling. The Enshadowed take especial delight in contriving cruel trials to torture their captives while alive, terrorize them to the point of madness, and then feed on their energies in sacrifice. I appreciate a firm adherence to an ethical principal, my lady – every good Kasari follows their Oath. But ethics applies first to a civil society. The enemy has no pretense to that.”
“As dire as the suffering has been,” Fondaras said, slowly, as he lit his pipe, “the more serious concern is the future. Korbal and the Enshadowed have tried every stratagem to undermine the Alka Alon Council and subvert the human domains. It is clear that they will not be content ruling a strip in the shadow of the Mindens. They desire to conquer the entire realm. Are we to allow that?” he asked, pointedly.
“They will not stop at mere conquest,” murmured Taren, shaking his head. “The Enshadowed seek allies who could challenge the Vundel. They aim higher than mere rule over the dry lands. They want the entire world.”
“What allies?” asked Ameras, sharply.
“Vassals of the Formless, my lady,” Lilastien explained, gently. “The Enshadowed are clearly communicating with those who would consume this world before it is destroyed. If they have their way, they will free their ancient masters from their prisons in the Deeps. They have been imprisoned for over half a million years. I cannot imagine that they would be charitable upon their release.”
Ameras looked increasingly stricken as the news got worse and worse. I watched the face of a near child crumble, as the weight of the world literally weighed on her. As much as I wanted her to do our bidding, I felt sorrowful that we were putting the young pretty maid in such a difficult position.
But there was something more to her expression, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“My . . . my friends,” she sighed, with a shudder. Her ears went flat against her head. “I don’t think you understand the complex considerations an Aronin must take before relinquishing something in our charge. The powers that we protect are potent,” she explained, pleadingly. “They can prove daunting. The office of Aronin was established long before the Alon came to Callidore. Its purpose is to spare the Alon from making rash decisions about using that power that oft led to unspeakable tragedy. Decisions that challenge our ethics. We exist to provide a counterpoint to the argument of noble intentions.
“Without the Aronin,” Rolof added, as he poured tea into each of our glasses, “the great powers of this world would go untended and undefended. They serve not just the molopor and the vaults, but scores of such potent situations across our world. Without them, much would be in chaos, and tyrants would contend to rule the lands.”
“That looks pretty likely, anyway,” Tyndal shot back. “Without more help, we’re going to lose this war. And if we lose this war, the rest of the Alka Alon citadels will eventually fall. And then what? What happens when you do need to escape through the molopor in three millennia? It will be in enemy hands. What price will the Enshadowed charge to permit its use? Does your philosophy permit the extinction of your own race, out of ethical concerns?” he asked, sharply. “If so, it is a poorly planned doctrine. The universe is a harsh place, my lady. If we are not prepared to answer that harshness with resolve, then perhaps we do not deserve to live,” he finished, darkly.
“Despite those considerations, when it comes to the vault, I cannot,” Ameras said, shaking visibly.
“Ishi’s tits, what would it take to convince you?” asked Ormar, angrily. “There are literal pyramids of human skulls – aye, and Alka Alon skulls! – heaped at Korbal’s gate! How many will it take to purchase your cooperation?”
“Keep your tongue, civil, wizard!” Rolof commanded, gruffly. Ormar is a scrappy fellow, to be certain, but there was a quiet menace in Rolof’s voice that was hard to challenge. “My lady is doing the best that she can, to hear your entreaties. Disrespect is not apt to turn her opinion!”
Thankfully, Ormar understood the importance of this meeting and did not press his challenge. Instead, Lilastien spoke, de-escalating the situation with calm, reasonable tones.
“Though crudely put,” she began, evenly, “Lord Ormar has a valid perspective: at what point would you permit the vault to open, Ameras?” she asked. “There must be some criteria involved. It was not designed to dispose of those artefacts; merely store them against future need. I can assure you that the Council will ask the same question.”
“And they will get the same answer!” Ameras said, defiantly, her ears sticking straight out behind her, her mane flowing in the lakeshore breeze. “I cannot open the vault on the Council’s whim! Korbal and Sheruel and a thousand Enshadowed are not sufficient reason to unseal that which I have been charged with! Do you have any idea what lies in that vault?” she demanded.
“No, and that’s why we’re here,” snorted Ormar. I motioned to him to be quiet. The situation was tense enough, without him sowing resentment.
“You have heard that the ancient weapons from the Warring States period are in that arsenal? True,” she admitted. “But there are more powerful forces than that in the vault. Not mere weapons, but artefacts using dark energies from our homeworld. Insidious powers we’d all but left behind when we came to Callidore. Tools and weapons responsible for carnage you cannot even consider, it is so horrific. We buried them here for a reason!” she insisted, adamantly.
“Of course you did,” I soothed. “That is your charge. We don’t really want those, but we are desperate, my lady. Your sire understood that,” I pointed out, feeling guilty about it even as I did so. “He bid me seek you out and persuade you to cooperate. I know not what standing he has in your deliberations, but if simply honoring the dying wishes of your father is not sufficient cause, then I beg you appreciate the Aronin’s wisdom.”
I delivered the plea as passionately as Tyndal’s and as reasonable as Lilastien’s – but I felt dirty in doing so. I wasn’t exactly lying – the Aronin had, indeed, charged me with seeking out his daughter. But I was also still angr
y at him manipulating me, years ago in Boval Vale. I had been his unwitting puppet for half a decade and invoking his title and relaying his deathbed wishes to his distraught and grieving daughter only seemed to inflame my resentment of the Alkan. How dare he put me in this uncomfortable position?
“I . . . I cannot,” Ameras whispered, looking down sadly.
“If you will not open the vault, my lady, I beg leave to try myself!” Tyndal declared, boldly. And stupidly, but there was a certain heroic determination in his demand.
“You will not betray any charge my lady bears, lest you answer to me,” Rolof said, darkly.
There was a pause in the conversation, while Tyndal tried to formulate an appropriate response. It was clear our old comrade would be choosing to side with his paramour over his old war buddies. I couldn’t really blame him, on a personal level, but I also didn’t want to invoke violence over this discussion.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to. After a significant pause, Fondaras began to laugh. Not his usual jovial chortle, but a deep and somewhat cynical laugh.
“Well, that’s the key, then, isn’t it?” he asked, a grim smile on his face. “I think you have hit upon the answer, my young and impetuous friend!”
“What answer?” demanded Tyndal. “What did I say?”
“You asked leave to open the vault if Lady Ameras would not,” the old footwizard said, puffing his pipe serenely. “And that is the answer: if you were a careful listener, like a good Fellow of the Road, you would have realized it yourself.”
“Speak plainly, old man!” grumbled Ormar.
“And civilly,” added Rolof, warningly.
“The answer lies in my lady’s response: thrice, now, she has declared that she cannot open the vault,” he explained.
“And that is an answer?” Tyndal asked, confused.
“Indeed,” assured Fondaras. “My lady has not declared her unwillingness to do so . . . she has communicated her inability to do so. My friends, I propose that Ameras cannot, as opposed to will not, open the vault.”
We all stared at Fondaras, for a moment, and then turned our attention to Ameras, who was slumped next to the fire. Rolof put his arm protectively about her shoulders. She looked up, her ears drooping and her big eyes tearful, as she stared at the old man.
“It’s true,” she said, hoarsely. “Alas, you have guessed correctly. My sire never instructed me in how to open the vault,” Ameras confessed, sadly. “Merely its location, and provision for its protection. I would have gained the knowledge in time, but the Abomination intervened before he could instruct me. The key to saving Callidore may well lie within the vault . . . but I haven’t the faintest idea about how to open it!” she said in despair.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Pledge of the Aronin
Discussions with Ameras are proving difficult. I must resort to charm and reason. I’m that desperate.
from the Expedition Book of Anghysbel,
Recorded by Minalan the Spellmonger
Ameras’ admission stunned us all.
I’d gotten used to being disappointed by the vaunted Alka Alon, whose reputation for intelligence and legendary wisdom were often overcome by the reality. Oh, their culture was breathtaking, their mastery of magic inspired awe, and their longevity bred a deep intelligence and acute appreciation for many, many things we ephemeral humans just could not understand. But I’d also gotten to know them both as people and as a civilization, and both contained the same flaws, mistakes, and petty emotions as humanity enjoyed.
But for a civilization that prided itself in doing everything better than humanity, it was both amusing and frightening to see such a basic failure in such an important, fundamental institution as the Aronin. They had a singular vocation. And they blew it.
Ameras was clearly distraught by the matter. She came the closest to a nervous breakdown I’d ever witnessed in one of the Fair Folk, while Rolof tried to comfort her. She felt the weight of her line’s failure and took it rather personally. And to have one of us short-lived, foolish mortals figure it out so swiftly had to be galling. I don’t know how Fondaras figured it out, but I was as impressed with his wisdom as I was sympathetic to Ameras’ sorrow.
No one wanted to address the awful truth . . . in public. But all of the insightful magi I’d brought with me had a keen desire to discuss the matter in private. With me. And I had little idea of how to proceed.
I realized, of course, that the secret vault of Alka Alon secrets had been holding an overlarge place in my mind. With Sheruel and Korbal on the loose, toppling regimes and instigating terror across human and Alka Alon settlements, my mind had quietly placed a great hope in the Alka Alon’s clandestine arsenal. They had been here for ten thousand years and had brought mighty magics with them when they came. Surely, they had some potent response to the insurrection in the west.
But when you find out your greatest hope against the darkness was a tepid taper of half-remembered glories, you start to lose hope. The Alka Alon had been revered as the ultimate defenders against the darkness the Enshadowed promised us all. Certain elements – the Emissaries, Onranion, Lilastien, Master Heruthel, even dour Lord Aeratas of Anthatiel – had given the magi hope that there was some all-powerful cavalry that would appear over the horizon at the last moment and rescue all the free lands from the darkness.
But that was clearly not to be. I’m not one to be over-awed by legends and mythologies. I’ve brought the very gods to bay with a terse retort. But I’d had faith in the Alka Alon that I didn’t want to betray. The Aronin had seemed overwhelmingly astute, when Tyndal and I had first met him. Ameras had seemed like a serene, youthful constant in a chaotically changing world.
But here I was, addressing an Alkan who was near madness, doubled over with grief with the assurance that her sire – who’d died in my arms – had failed his charge because he’d failed to pass along to his only daughter the one bloody thing we needed to access the legendary power of the Alka Alon.
Disappointment? Why is there no word greater than that, to describe how a man can feel when his faintest, greatest hopes are dashed? I’d have to take that up with the Rysh, I resolved. Words and emotions were his domain.
But sorrow was a thoughtful substitute. As I sat and watched Ameras fall apart at confronting the reality of the situation, I could not help but to feel a profound sorrow overwhelm me. For someone so young – no more than four centuries, according to Lilastien – a profound responsibility had been thrust upon Ameras that she was clearly not equipped to contend with. If the Aronins were guardians, then her line had failed their charge spectacularly. And it was apparent enough for even us dumb humani to recognize it.
I studiously avoided discussing anything of consequence with Ameras, as we prepared the evening meal. I had a thousand questions plaguing me about the vault, but I knew that even one would invite a cascade of troubling answers from the Scion of the Aronin. She bore a burden that I couldn’t even imagine. Perhaps my role was an advocate for humanity, but I could not feel anything but sorrow as the weepy little pixie nearly collapsed under the truth of the matter.
Accountability is a bitch, I reflected.
Fondaras and Travid wandered off to fish the lake, and Tyndal and Ormar followed, to try to catch our supper. That left a small knot of very responsible, highly idealistic folk on the lake shore to consider the future. And it wasn’t a happy company.
“This is dark news,” Taren grumbled, as he stared into the small fire.
“This is . . . a complication,” Lilastien agreed, reluctantly. Ameras and Rolof were safely out of earshot, digging tubers in the meadow beyond the rocks.
“Complication?” I asked, before I could stop myself. “We were counting on Ameras opening the vault and bringing the most potent weapons to bear on our foe. And providing a means of escape from the world, for the Council,” I reminded her.
“She just said that she didn’t know how to open the vault,” Lilastien argued. “That doesn’t mean t
he vault can’t be opened.”
“What a lovely distinction,” snorted Taren, as he gazed out over the lake. It truly was beautiful. “Here I’ve been assuming that the Alka Alon would get off their collective ass, once Anthatiel fell. Now I find they’ve lost the key to their arsenal.”
“It isn’t a very good look,” I murmured in agreement.
“Yet it isn’t hopeless,” Lilastien reminded us, though I doubted she believed the very words she was saying. “The Aronin are notoriously subtle. It’s possible that her sire did give his daughter the information she needs to open the vault. She just doesn’t realize it, yet.”
“And the world burns while we wait,” Taren said, shaking his head. “My lady, I appreciate your optimism, but some of us were counting on the Alka Alon having a solution – any solution – to the problem of the Enshadowed. And the Nemovorti. And Korbal and Sheruel and their entourage . . .”
“Yet here we sit, disappointed,” I agreed. It was just friends, talking, after all. About the end of the world. There was no need to equivocate.
“It’s not her fault!” Lilastien insisted. “Her sire did not—”
“The issue is not with her or her sire,” I nodded. “It is with the Alka Alon. We counted on you.” I felt bad, calling Lilastien to account for the actions of the Council. I knew of any Alka Alon in the world who might take issue with the Council’s rulings, Lilastien had more cause than most to challenge their wisdom.
Yet, I still felt some resentment. Throughout recorded history, the Alka Alon had “guided” humanity away from our baser nature and encouraged us to take a longer – more immortal – perspective. Despite our short lives. The Epics were filled with admonishments against rash action and foolish decisions. Yet the Fair Folk seemed no better at preserving and protecting the essential elements of their cultural institutions than we were. Hells, a third-rate humani temple to some long-forgotten god seemed better tended than this “vault of secrets.” It made one doubt the efficacy of the “immortals” who lauded their wisdom over us.
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