Foundations Broken and Built

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Of course – good!” she affirmed.

  “And I’d like your help,” he added.

  “Thank you!” she interrupted to hug him again. “You said as much in the message you sent, but it’s good to hear it in person.”

  They held a discussion about the way to combine their energies, as they recollected stories of what they had done to build the dancing platform for the sprites during Silas’s residence in Faralag.

  Silas yawned a long, loud yawn that he couldn’t stifle as the conversation wound down.

  “I’m sorry to keep you up,” Riesta said drolly, and she landed a soft punch on his shoulder.

  “I didn’t sleep last night,” he tried to justify.

  “You were in Amenozume? With Mata and Lumene?” the Mover asked alertly. “Was everything okay? Did something keep you awake?”

  “I had a talk with Lumene, the Princess,” he corrected himself. “Well, and one with Mata too,” he added. “She is going to marry someone else,” he explained.

  “I’m sorry Silas,” Riesta was sympathetic.

  “It’s okay, really. We had grown apart, and she’s found someone else,” he said.

  “And you have too? The Princess?” Riesta shrewdly guessed.

  Silas nodded.

  “There was love in her voice when she flew over to your body, after L’Anvien’s priest was killed,” Riesta acknowledged, as she recollected the bloody scene in Ivaric.

  “I want to marry her, but the gods have told me to go on a mission first, and Lumene makes it sound like the marriage might have to wait until after I return. That could be months, or even years,” he let his fears out to the friend who he trusted. “She isn’t happy with me; she thinks about the reaction of the court and all that it could mean.”

  “She should think about such things, Silas,” Riesta said firmly. “She’s a very smart woman. And she’s strong. She seems to know what she wants and how to achieve it. She will be a great queen when her time comes to sit on the throne.

  “And she’ll make a great mate for you, it sounds like to me,” Riesta added without a pause. “Listen to her, understand what she’s telling you.”

  Silas sat in silence.

  “So you think I should go ahead and carry out this crusade the gods want, and then come back to her, if she waits for me that long?” he asked.

  “I and Ruten ended up waiting for each other a long time,” Riesta answered gently. “Because he had a mission he had to carry out, and I had duties in Faralag. But the day came when we returned to one another, and I couldn’t be happier.” Silas saw the genuine pleasure writ on her face, the joy she found in her life with Ruten once again a part of it.

  He sat in silence once more for several seconds.

  “So when will you be ready to help me destroy the Ivaric temple of L’Anvien?” Silas asked.

  “Whenever you want; I was born ready,” Riesta laughed. “Why not another episode of violent action?”

  “This afternoon, after the imps wake up?” Silas asked.

  Riesta laughed, and laughed some more, then looked at Silas’s earnest expression.

  “Really?” she asked. She looked at his leg in a meaningful way.

  “If the imps set us down in the right place, we won’t have to do any running. I don’t need to feet to stand up, if I have my cane or if you’ll support me,” he stated.

  “Why not?” Riesta threw her hands up in the air. “Sure. I’ll go with you and confront the deadliest building on the continent. You have a plan, right?”

  Silas nodded his head.

  Chapter 30

  “Are you sure he didn’t bend your mind? This is crazy!” Ruten opined for the fourth time that afternoon, as he sat on the bench of the wagon with Riesta and Silas. During the lunch break the pair had announced their plan to travel via imp back to Ivaric, to carry out Silas’s mission to destroy the temple. Ruten had been opposed – he only wanted to get Riesta and everyone else away from the evil city as fast as possible.

  “So you didn’t know Prima and Preeanne are siblings?” Riesta ignored her lover and asked Silas, hoping to change the topic. “I thought everyone knew. Of course we all knew because one day he was a prince of the land, and the next day he was gone,” she explained.

  “Only in Faralag would a prince disappear to go off and roam the continent in disguise,” Silas answered.

  “Oh, I think there are other places that breed that type of nobility,” Riesta contradicted him. “Even mountain villages will produce sons who go off on quests to save the world,” she let a small smile reach her lips.

  “Why do the two of you need to go to Ivaric today to do this? Why not wait until Silas is healed?” Ruten refused to let go of the topic.

  “They’re vulnerable now,” Riesta began to answer. “They’re in chaos, and not expecting an attack.”

  Silas answered at the same time. “The sooner I get this done, the sooner I can go back to Amenozume and let Lumene know I’m trying to get this all done so that we can wed.”

  “Ahhh,” Ruten said. “Now I understand. If this is about showing off for your girlfriend, you should have said so. That’s a valid reason.

  “But don’t take my beloved and put her in danger for your sake,” he added after a slight pause.

  “I won’t put Riesta in any danger,” Silas immediately answered. “If there was any sign of danger, I’d tell the imps to take her to safety immediately – she means almost as much to me as she does to you.”

  “Oh Silas – that’s so sweet,” Riesta said affectionately. “Would you take notes on all of this romantic activity and talk, Ruten?” she asked.

  “I’m plenty romantic,” he snapped back.

  “Don’t harm her in any way Silas. Not a single scratch, or you’ll have me to explain it to,” he warned.

  “So you accept that this is okay?” Riesta asked. “Not that you were going to stop us, but I’m glad you aren’t going to make this a fight.”

  Ruten muttered something under his breath.

  “Do you think it’s time?” Riesta asked Silas. “Are your imps up and awake and ready to join us now?”

  “I think we can call them. Are you both sure,” he looked from one to the other, “that you really are willing to go along?”

  “Silas, I suspect that if I don’t help you, you will try to do this on your own anyway, alone,” Riesta answered. “And more than that, I want to be part of helping to destroy L’Anvien,” she said.

  Ruten simply gave a curt nod of his head.

  “Stillwater, Odare,” Silas called out loud. “Stillwater, Odare,” he repeated.

  There was only a pause of a few seconds, and the two imps appeared in the air in front of the wagon.

  “Silas midnight awakener, this is a much more reasonable time to meet,” Odare told him. “Hello Riesta friend,” she added.

  “Hello Odare friend,” Riesta replied with a twinkle in her eye.

  “We would like to go somewhere,” Silas began to speak.

  “We shall gather others, to carry the three of you,” Odare cut him off.

  “Only the two of us will go,” Silas pointed to Riesta and himself demonstrably.

  “Is it wise for them to flaunt this dalliance so publicly, traveling off together?” Odare asked Stillwater in a stage whisper that was audible to all.

  “Let us ask them what the purpose of this jaunt is, and where it will be to,” Stillwater suggested in a judicious tone.

  “What is the purpose of this dalliance, and where will it be?” Odare immediately turned to the wagon and asked the humans.

  “We are going to go back to Ivaric to destroy the Temple of L’Anvien,” Silas replied. “We accidentally left it standing when we departed from the city.”

  “Another act of war! In that dark city! We will take you – we will help you! Let us call a brigade of imps to join the battle!” Stillwater was filled with martial fervor.

  “We really only need for you to take us there. Silas is g
oing to destroy the temple and harm L’Anvien; I’m there to help him,” Riesta tried to calm the imp down.

  “Aah,” Stillwater sounded deflated.

  “But then perhaps after this battle, Silas would like to go to this Healing Spring, I have heard so much about, but never been invited to visit myself,” Riesta gave Odare a broad wink as she spoke.

  “It is truly outrageous that you have not gone to the dream waters!” the imp answered appropriately. “You must go. As a matter of fact, I will take you to the spring with one team of imps, while Stillwater takes Silas to the battle field with another team.”

  “Perhaps we could all go to both places together?” Riesta suggested delicately.

  “You are more generous than me,” Odare acknowledged. “If you wish to be so kind, I and the others will go along with you.”

  The two imps were silent, inwardly-focused for moments as they exercised their communications with others of their race, and then several new bodies in various shades of blue appeared in the air around the wagon.

  “You be careful,” Ruten said urgently to Riesta, as he leaned forward and across Silas, to suddenly plant a firm kiss on Riesta’s lips, leaving the girl surprised and grinning as the imps descended and pressed against the two travelers. A moment later, Ruten sat alone on the wagon.

  “You two better come back in good shape, or I’ll thrash you both and whoever hurt you,” he muttered softly to the empty spots on the driver’s bench.

  Chapter 31

  Silas and Riesta experienced the imps traveling passage through nothingness, and then emerged in the plaza space between the harbor and the L’Anvien temple, at the spot where the imps had picked up the bleeding Silas just days before. The plaza area they emerged in was sparsely populated, with many dark splashes still staining the cobblestones where blood had been shed and not washed away.

  Silas immediately grasped Riesta’s hand, as he grasped his own powers and erected a domed shield over his small group of companions, a blue protective umbrella to prevent any immediate injury.

  “Thank you, imp-friends,” he spoke politely. “Now please go someplace safe and wait for us to summon you back. This will take us several minutes to accomplish.”

  “Farewell destroyer-friends. We will await your summons. Perhaps we will go to the dreaming water spring and wait for you there. Could you transport yourself there to meet us?” Odare asked, then grinned, and disappeared, as did the rest of the flight of imps.

  The remaining pair heard sprinkled shouts sound around them as members of the Ivaric public spotted the shining structure Silas had erected.

  Riesta began to share her powers with Silas, and he grinned at the feel of their communion.

  “Let’s go, shall we?” he asked politely, and then he applied his energy as he intended.

  Stones began to tremble, crack, and lift, as an opening appeared in the surface of the plaza. The stones moved out of their set positions, piling up in a ring of rubble around the hole they revealed, and then dirt from inside the opening began to spray upward as well, as the hole began to grow deeper. The dirt flew and the hole progressed, until suddenly the depth of the hole reached a layer of solid bedrock twenty feet below the surface. Small volumes of pebbles jarred themselves loose and sporadically rose out of the pit, an obvious decline in the volume of material that Silas was excavating.

  “This is where you said we have to exert more energy?” Riesta asked.

  Silas nodded. A few arrows and spears and even thrown rocks were starting to ping off the exterior of the protective dome, but he paid no heed to the insignificant threats as he began to apply his energy more forcefully below the ground. He sent streams of air forcefully into every crevice, cranny, crack, and nook that was exposed, tearing the bedrock apart, so that larger chunks and numerous pieces of the stone began to fly upwards as the quarrying resumed its progress, albeit at a slower rate of descent.

  With Riesta’s help, Silas climbed to the top of the imposing mound of dirt that had piled up, and he peered cautiously down into the hole after a few more minutes, and saw that the shaft he had opened was now nearly forty feet deep. The debris around the crater nearly reached the top of his protective dome, and he ducked slightly as the pair of Movers examined the progress of the excavation.

  “We can adjust it now,” he said softly. He raised his head to look up at the temple, then closed his eyes and redirected the progress of the combined energy of the Movers. The airflows that he was using shifted direction, and began to move horizontally, carving a path inland towards the walls of the nearby temple.

  There was a sudden boom directly overhead, one that startled both Silas and Riesta. They looked up, and saw subtle cracks formed in the protective dome.

  “There’s someone in the temple who still knows how to wield L’Anvien’s powers,” Silas acknowledged softly.

  “Will you be able to hold the protective shield in place and keep digging beneath the surface?” Riesta asked in a neutral manner, without serious concern.

  “For a while,” Silas answered. He kept studying the shield, trying to judge how much more damage it could withstand. As he looked, a second red explosion flashed against the dome, coming from the temple-facing side. A loud explosion simultaneously made both the Movers clasp their hands to their ears, and as they did so, they released their grip on each other, and the flow of power from Riesta to Silas ceased.

  Silas was suddenly overwhelmed by the need to maintain both functions strictly on his own. He further began to unsteadily wobble, as the release of Riesta’s grip left him unsteady, and he began to topple over. At the same time, the dome overhead began to thin and turn transparent.

  Riesta reached out impulsively and grabbed Silas’s tunic to steady him. Silas reached down to seize her hand in his, setting the flow of energy between the two of them in motion once again.

  “We may need to leave Silas,” she conceded. “The tunnels still have a long way to go, and with the attacks and the defense, I’m feeling stretched already.”

  “We can reduce the stress,” he pulled her in close to himself and wrapped an arm around her in a tight hug, then exercised his power to let them float gently downward in the air, down into the pit, down to a soft landing on the cracked and broken stone surface at the bottom.

  “Here,” Silas released his grip on Riesta, and lifted his hand high overhead. “Smaller,” he commanded, as he slowly squeezed his fingers into a fist. The dome far overhead reflected the movement of his fingers, as it shrank and drew downward, until it was a flat lid over the tunnel opening, and then it slipped down further, lowering steadily until it was ten feet beneath the level of the surrounding paved plaza.

  “Stop,” Silas ordered softly, and he flicked his wrist as he dismissed any further motion of the protective cover, leaving it in place.

  “What now?” Riesta asked.

  “Now the defenses are less of a visible target, less of an energy drain, and less of a challenge to L’Anvien’s followers. We can count on it to last a little while longer while we finish our task,” he held onto her as he turned to face the tunnel that he had begun boring sideways, and he resumed his use of power to make fragments and rocks and sand all fly backwards to the pit Silas had intended for it to refill.

  He and Riesta stood to the side as the steady flow of newly excavated stone raced past them, and began to pile up in the open pit, while the tunnel drilled further and further beneath the city, towards Silas’s intended spot – a target beneath the center of L’Anvien’s temple.

  “We have to move inward,” Silas told Riesta, “Hug the wall so you don’t get struck by the debris.

  “Shield, collapse,” he added.

  “Why did you do that?” Riesta asked.

  “No one’s going to climb down into this hole to chase after us,” Silas answered. “I need to save our energy now.”

  “How are we going to get out of here?” the Mover asked him as they began to inch inward.

  “Don’t as
k questions; I have to count steps to measure if we’re far enough under the temple,” Silas spoke in a distracted tone. He was taking shuffling steps of approximately the same length while he braced himself upon her, Riesta realized, and she remained silent as they followed the advance of the tunneling energy, step by step, into the darkness of the earth.

  “Digging, cease,” Silas called out a few minutes later, as he held his hand out and lowered his palm. The stream of flying debris quickly stopped, though the two temporary underground inhabitants could tell only by the lack of noise; they were cut off from all light as they stood under the heart of darkness, the tunnel behind them largely filled with the debris from the tunnel that rested before them.

  “Let’s go,” Silas tugged on Riesta’s hand, and led her forward as he counted more steps softly, then reached a number that satisfied him, and he stopped.

  “Stillwater, Stillwater, Odare,” he called upon the imps.

  “What is this terrible place?” Riesta heard an imp’s voice ask aloud a moment later.

  “Stillwater, it’s us, Riesta and Silas,” Silas’s voice explained. “I want you to take Riesta from this tunnel and go back to the healing spring. Wait with her there, until I call you.

  “I’ll call you from this tunnel when I make it start to destroy the temple above, and I’ll need to leave this tunnel instantly. Can you do that, come get me that quickly?” he asked.

  “We saved Kestrel friend many, many times from difficult situations,” Odare’s voice indicated her presence. “Surely we can do the same for you,” she spoke confidently.

  “Why don’t you keep me here to help you Silas?” Riesta asked. “I have a little energy left. I could do some more good for you.”

  “I won’t need your help,” Silas tried to explain without a stinging rejection. “I’m going to call upon Krusima. He helped me do something similar once before to L’Anvien’s temple in Amenozume.”

  “You’ll work with a god?” Riesta asked is astonishment. Her hand tightened its grip on his.

  “I’ve done it before; they trust me,” he answered bravely, though he knew that Krusima actually was more likely to say disparaging things than supportive things to him.