by Stone Thomas
A bolt of black magic crackled and arced through the air toward the pearlescent gates of the empire’s strongest city. The doors, one moment white and gleaming, disintegrated to ash before our eyes.
Inside that gate stood the Great Mother, with an imperial army behind her. She stood, no taller than Nola would stand. A long white robe ruffled in the wind behind her. A shining white breastplate covered her chest, no less gleaming and bright than her long white hair and smooth alabaster skin.
“We are ready for you, Duul,” she said.
Behind us, there was laughter. A man, taller than the tallest general, stepped through his army with long strides. His skin was red and dry, wrinkled and crumpled like the skin of a rotten fruit.
“None have been ready,” he said. He practically gargled his own voice in his throat. It was then that I noticed them. A handful of men and women who were no mortal combatants. They were gods and goddesses, floating above the earth or flying with wings of their own, helping to guide Duul’s army into their final battle.
Those deities took quick actions that sent spells through the air, landing deep inside the Imperial City. The army behind the Great Mother turned their heads in confusion and fear. One spell erupted in a dense fog that expanded toward the white-clad army. Another sparked flames that set building after building ablaze.
“Is this what you came here for?” Duul asked. He stepped through the cretins and past his subservient gods. He towered over me and Yurip. “Tell your precious Nola that I will not be spied on, not now and not ever!”
He saw us. Somehow, the image of the future that Nola projected into our minds had brought Duul into contact with us.
“Enjoy this vision while it lasts, Duul,” I said. “We will never let this come to pass.”
“Now let me show you a vision,” he said, reaching toward Yurip. He pinched the lawmonger’s shirt between his fingers and lifted the man a few inches from the ground. Yurip lost his transparency, became fully opaque. Fully a part of a world we thought we only visited.
“Nola!” I yelled. “Nola, get him out of here!”
Duul laughed. “I don’t have the power of premonition at my disposal, but I can share with you my mind’s eye. See what I have in store for your pathetic goddess.”
The Imperial City faded from view. Instead, we saw Halcyon. We saw Nola. She lay on the floor of her temple clutching her hair with her fingers. Tears of blood streamed from her eyes as she thrashed, trapped in some kind of nightmare. Biddy and many others crowded around her, but none seemed able to help.
Then we looked back, through the temple’s open doors. The path leading to the temple was full of the same black glistening faces as the army Duul led against the Great Mother.
“They are coming for you,” he said, “as we speak. And when they take her life, it is I that will reap the benefit. They feed me, Arden, the way you would feed me. Join me.”
“What am I to you?” I asked. “Cahn said you want me to lead a war against the empire. Why?”
“Cahn is a means to an end,” Duul said. “You, however, have symbolic value. Owning you would sweeten the revenge that I’ll suckle from victory’s tit.”
“I’ll never serve you, Duul,” I said. “I’ll die first.”
“Emptier words were never spoken,” he replied. “And don’t forget the future’s lesson. None have ever been ready for me.”
My vision turned black and the sound of Nola struggling against her own mind on the temple floor faded away. When I opened my eyes, I was in that office again, in the present.
Nola?, I asked. Are you okay?
I am, she said. I saw the whole thing but I couldn’t break the connection. How are you?
That depends on whether we accomplished what we needed to, I said.
Yurip’s face was pale and drenched in sweat. “We can’t let it fall. The empire is all I know.”
“We don’t want to let it fall,” I said. “My allegiance is to Nola and the people of Halcyon. That requires us to stand up to Duul. If we succeed, the empire survives.”
He spent a long time staring at his shoes. I wanted to push him for an answer, especially with Duul’s forces on the way, but this moment was delicate. I didn’t just need him to say yes, I needed him to feel it.
At long last he said, “I accept. I accept your offer. I will advise you as chief administrator of Halcyon.”
“I need your assurance,” I said. “I don’t give this post lightly, and I won’t have you changing your mind.”
Yurip walked toward the bookshelves that lined the rear of the office. He took off his invisible backpack and turned it upside down, releasing a torrent of books, scrolls, and clipboards.
“I go nowhere without my law library,” he said. “These books have a home now on these shelves. Take my bag. I no longer need it.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Very,” he said. “All of my days traveling the farthest reaches of the human lands and inspecting the mundane deficiencies of outposts and villages trying their best to provide comfort and safety to good people. Those days were a waste. I thought I was building toward a day when I gained the empire’s respect, maybe a small promotion. There are larger priorities now.”
“I’ll need you to pledge fealty,” I said.
“With all haste,” he replied.
“And apologize to Roda,” I said, “if you ever want to eat again.”
“Understood,” he said. “I might even approve her for a liquor license.”
I clapped a hand on his shoulder. He smiled, an expression that stuck this time. “Thank you, Yurip. Now, about the mine.”
“I won’t abandon everything I hold dear,” he said. “The empire’s laws may not be perfect, but they are sound. A mine with a goblin infestation is a danger to all who enter it. Goblins are known to dig without caution and they may cause the hill to collapse if left unchecked. I’ll certify it when the problem is dealt with.
“And,” he continued, “I know you want to mint coins. There are requirements, not the least of which being the setting aside of value for the empire’s coffers. When the path is safe, we need to deliver goods worth the coins we mint in order to keep faith in the currency.
“We must also mint copper, silver, and gold coins in the correct proportions to ensure larger coins can be broken into smaller change when necessary. I will guide you through the requirements, but they must be met.”
“I think that’s fair,” I said. “And look at that, we saw eye to eye without a single executioner’s curse.”
“About that,” Yurip said. “I haven’t unlocked that one yet. It was a bluff. Really, the worst I could do is a Red Tape debuff. I’ll remove the scofflaw’s curse now, from everyone.” He laughed nervously. “I created a lot of scofflaws while you were gone.”
My arms returned to their normal color. “We’ll discuss the finer details of your role later. For now, we focus on Duul’s approach.”
Nola, I said, how much time do we have?
Little, she said. They’re far but they’re moving fast. I’m sending the girls up to you for further instruction.
+33
Vix was the first to arrive. “How do you like your new office?” she asked.
“It’s a little small,“ Yurip said, “but I’ll make everything fit. Thank you for asking.”
Vix looked puzzled for a moment, then disappointed.
“Yurip is our new chief administrator,” I said. “He’ll help us get the mine certified, among other things.”
“Ah,” she said. She leaned forward so that Yurip couldn’t hear. “You didn’t like it.”
“I loved it,” I said, “but we were desperate to get Yurip on our side and I needed a bargaining chip. I’m sorry, Vix. I can see how hard you worked on this.”
She took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said, “I can handle that. I was just afraid you hated it.”
“No,” I said. “Far from it.”
“Welcome aboard, Yurip,” she
said. Yurip gave her a lazy wave and continued piling books onto his new bookshelves.
“Vix,” I said, “I’m sorry I’ve been absent for so long. I know you wanted to show me what you and the deviser have been working on.”
“You’re busy,” she said. “You can’t always come running when I get excited about something.”
“I’m excited about it too, though,” I said. “What is it?”
“Well,” she said, leaning forward. Her eyes lit up while her tail brushed side to side. “It’s finished now. We built a control tower in the center of the hill for the walls.”
“A control tower?” I asked. “How many kinds of towers are you going to build before you get tired of them?”
“Hey,” she said, “the best defense is a tower defense. But this one’s not like the others. It doesn’t aim energems at baddies. It aims the walls.”
“Now you’ve lost me,” I said.
“We had extracted the last available raw energems right before Duul attacked last time,” she said. “Those energems were all charged by the cretins, war dogs, and the big bad general we killed.
“I’ve built towers along the inside perimeter of the wall, but those are for archers and ranged classes like Lily and Ambry. The energems themselves are set inside the stone walls. You can see them, shining in between some of the brown stones that form the bulk of the walls.
“We have energems with ice, fire, and snake spells, but then I thought, we’ll need more. So I left some open spaces that we could pop more energems into as we grow.
“Then I realized, once we install them, they’ll be stuck facing a single direction. Enter the deviser. She and I created a device that runs the entire length of the wall. When I pull a few control tower levers, it plucks the energems from their current spot and rotates them to the next spot.
“If we want ice balls that freeze baddies in place, I just rotate two or three times and boom, now the ice balls are aimed in the right direction. Cretins at four o’clock in need of a good snaking? No problem. Pluck and rotate.”
She couldn’t smile any harder without breaking her face in half. Her excitement was contagious. “Have I told you lately that you’re a genius?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “And hold that thought, because here’s the most important thing: it doesn’t work.”
Well that was anticlimactic. Sort of like conversational blue balls. “How… disappointing.”
“The machinery aspect is the deviser’s domain, and it’s too complex for her. She’ll need to get her main deviser skill up first.”
“I can get it up,” I said. “I’ll have no problem getting it up for her.”
“Not in time,” Vix said. “She cribbed part of the blueprints from a design her sponsor was working on, but she was working off memory alone and he was a lot more advanced than her. It’ll take years before she can fix the design flaws.”
“Well,” I said, “thank you for trying.”
I was hoping for a little good news, in light of all the ways we weren’t ready for this oncoming attack. Not only was Vix’s big project a dud, we had goblins fighting us from the inside, gi-ants losing patience, everyone was underfed, and yet we’d have to ask the people that just escaped Landondowns to take up arms again here. Not to mention, Nola hadn’t evolved once since the last attack.
A few moments later, Lily and Mamba joined us, completing our circle.
“You did build new towers though?” I asked, circling back to the one beneficial takeaway of Vix’s work these past few weeks.
“Yes,” she said. “The walls are basically a circle at this point, lining the edge of the hilltop. There are a dozen new towers spaced evenly.”
“Good,” I said. “Duul gave me a sneak peek at what we’re up against. Let’s map our strategy.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the map Lexa had crafted for me. As I laid it on the table, it looked odd. The image on the parchment was small and square.
All I could see here was the inside of the office. We’d have to go outside to see outside. Now I saw why that was annoying.
“On second thought,” I said, “forget the map. Cretins will attack from the north and target the front gates, then try to funnel into the temple. The towers along the north of the hilltop give us a high vantage point for shooting downward while the towers that line the front path slow the cretins’ approach.
“Let them come through that gauntlet while we shoot from the safety of the hill. Lily, Ambry, and Mamba, I want all three of you up top with archers. Alternate your attacks — ice, fire, snakes — so you don’t run out of action points too soon.”
“What about me?” Vix asked.
“I want you inside the temple with me,” I said. “We’ll hold the door like last time.”
“I want to help!” a girl called from the door. “Gowes said you were all planning for the next attack. I hope I’m not too late.”
“Jessip,” I said. I fiddled with the map on the table, squeezing my fingers together and idly zooming out on the small office while I prepared to deal Jessip another disappointment. “I appreciate the offer, but there’s nothing for you to do this time around. I’ll want you inside the temple where it’s safe.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” she said. “Look.” She held out a small bronze sword.
“Isn’t that Carzl’s?” I asked.
“He gave it to me when I told him how excited I was to fight,” she said. “I know I haven’t shown any talent for building our base. I can’t cook, farm, build, tinker, dig, smelt, or carve. The only thing I’ve even enjoyed so far was helping Carzl inventory the items in his shop. But I want to help keep everyone safe so they can do the helpful things they love.
“And before you say no,” she continued, “you should know that this isn’t just me taking a wild stab at something I might like. This is divinely inspired. Gowes helped me think it through.”
“Gowes?” I asked. “The god whose full time job is helping people ignore that nagging feeling that a bad idea is actually a bad idea? Like, gee, maybe I should spend all afternoon mastering the art of stepping over a non-existent invisible box. No, I won’t faceplant from lack of coordination, and if I do, I’ll just lie there and start planking instead. That Gowes?”
“I was pretty down on myself for my complete lack of useful skills,” Jessip said. “Gowes helped me figure out what would make me happy. Eventually, I want to be an adventurer.”
“I want you not to die,” I said. “That’s my number one priority for everyone here now. Send Megra up, would you? She’s a bomber girl, and she’ll be useful during the attack.”
Jessip bit her lip, but she didn’t break eye contact with me. I looked away first, glancing around the table at the girls that were preparing to defend the temple. None had battle experience before the cretins showed up, but they devoted themselves fully and learned quickly.
I took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Jessip clasped her hands in front of her as she spoke.
“Stick with Vix when the cretins show up,” I said. “You’ll see combat firsthand. If you’re injured even a little bit, head to the recovery beds and heal up. You’ll know better after this if combat is for you.”
She ran over and threw her arms around me from behind. Her long dark hair fell forward across my face. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” And with that, she ran off.
“Will you watch her?” I asked Vix.
“Of course,” she said. “Anything lays a hand on her, I’ll stun it and clear a path to the recovery beds. It’s nice you’re giving her this chance.”
When I glanced back at the map, I saw more than just a small square where the office was. I saw a shape roughly the same as Nola’s temple, the insides of the other buildings on the hill, and a network of rough shapes that looked like different chambers within our underground mine. I hadn’t been inside the mine though, not since before Lexa gave me the mapping compass.
I felt along my pant
legs. “Thieving little brats!”
Yurip turned back. “Goblins again?”
“They must have pickpocketed me during the fire,” I said. I still had the potion from Meadowdale, the last portalbella mushroom, and Cahn’s signet, but not the compass.
Less than an hour now, Nola said.
Already?, I asked. We need to bring everyone inside, fast. What’s the new limit of your psychic projection? Can you see if the farmers have heard the oncoming attack?
I can send widely, she said, but aside from the occasional intrusion from powerful gods like the Great Mother and Duul, you’re the only one I receive from. It’s a darn good thing too. Parsing all the thoughts floating around the top of your mind is work enough. It’s usually something like: “sex, sex, boobs, more sex, save the world, sex again, sweet rolls.”
My brain would give you the silent treatment right now if it could, I said. Tell the hunters and farmers to seek shelter in the temple. Same with everyone on the hill, and beneath it.
Beneath it?, Nola asked. You mean like Ess? I’m sure she and the gi-ants will plan to sit this one out since we haven’t fed them.
Not Ess, I said. The entrance to the mine is at the base of our hill, too far from the temple’s doors to fall within our entry gates. It’s entirely unprotected.
Oh no, the miners!, she replied. I still can’t reach underground to warn them telepathically.
Then I’ll go, I said. “Cindra, I need you in the mine. Everyone else, this is it. Make your final preparations, gather the archers, and take your posts. Vix, I’ll meet you inside the temple soon.”
+34
The entrance to the mine was the only part of Halcyon that wasn’t inside walls or fences. We ran down the stone steps at the front of the hill, almost crashing into Megra on her way up.
“Arden!” she said. “Jessip said you wanted me.”
“Come with us,” I said. We ran across the small bridge over the meditation room, down the front path, and past the six pairs of defensive towers that led away from the front doors. The front gates were open for now, but soon they would be locked from the inside. We needed to get the miners and return to the temple before that happened.
