by Billy Wong
Ruth asked none too quietly, "Should we really go to such lengths to help that whining fool?"
"It's not him who'll benefit most from this. The people have already endured much, if anything I wish we could do more for them than just get their homes back in livable condition."
"This is generous of you," Brennan said, "when there is not much we can do for you in return."
She shrugged. "I consider it a long term investment. I hope that our continued cooperation can lead to a healthy relationship between our lands, for the sake of us all."
Jasper gave her a dubious look. "Lands? It wasn't twenty years ago that our cities were part of the same nation."
"Things are different now. I was a little girl before the cataclysm, and were you even mayor back then? I'm sure many would rather go back to those times, and I wish that disaster didn't happen either. All those millions of people dead... just saying it, it's hard to even comprehend... Still, we have to deal with the world as it is now. And building a partnership between our lands, or cities if you prefer, is the first step to making humanity shine again."
"Did humanity ever really shine?"
Though she tried to stop herself, she couldn't help rolling her eyes at his cynicism. "Maybe Athendar didn't, but Galantria did. And perhaps we can make a better world than before, even if it seems far off, one step at a time."
"Might be that Galantria only shone in your eyes, that hadn't the experience to see the dirt in it for what it was."
The empire shone, that familiar voice said for her to hear alone, and will again.
She ignored him this time, not wanting to give Jasper more ammunition to use against her. "I think you've been miserable for so long, you forgot what life has to offer. It'll get better. If we keep looking forward and have faith in ourselves, we can make it better." Lars and Ruth gazed approvingly at her, though Strength seemed disinterested. Brennan looked inspired too, given the way he sat straighter in his chair, no longer cringing from his injured arm.
At last Jasper said, "There is something to be admired in your optimism, though its realism might be questioned. Still, I hope you are right for all our sakes."
"Will you be leaving us," Brennan asked, "now that the great beast 'Tentacle Nest' is dead?" He smiled. "It looks like the naming gave you power over it after all."
She laughed. "No, it was probably just my fighting ability. I'm considering staying for a while; since we couldn't learn much about the elementals"—or how to rid herself of an unwanted spirit—"at home, I thought somebody in Athendar might know more. Is that alright, Jasper?"
"I would hardly bar those who saved my city from visiting it. Though, I don't know who here would know much about elementals. We are far from being the empire with all its research into the arcane and tampering with nature."
Lay off on the pessimism, she thought. "If we don't find anything, so be it. But we won't know until we try, right? And since information regarding this will likely benefit you too, it wouldn't hurt to wish us luck."
"By the way," he asked with a glance out the window at Tentacle Nest's mammoth corpse, "how are we supposed to get rid of that?"
"I guess you'll have to cut it up and dispose of it piece by piece. Hey, don't give me that look! You're probably thinking I should have waited to finish it in the water, but if I waited that long, I may not have been able to kill it at all before it got away. So you have to admit having it lying there is the more preferable outcome of the two, yes?"
A brief silence passed between them, then he grudgingly nodded.
Chapter 6
Because she already spent so much of her time in a manor, Cart-Dragger didn't ask Jasper if he had any rooms he could spare and checked her group into the inn instead. Besides, she might not like having him or his servants snooping on her especially when she engaged in conversation with Maximilian. A bit ironic that Strength already stayed at the mayor's house while her employer settled for a humble inn room, but Cart-Dragger wasn't one to worry much about image. She, Lars and Ruth spent the next days asking around about elementals and curing possession—the latter more discreetly, avoiding mentions of who needed to be cured—but nobody seemed to know anything.
Maximilian gloated over their lack of progress, telling her she would never get rid of him and that her body was destined to be his. In response, she said, "It's not as if you've gotten any closer to gaining control either. At this rate, maybe you'll just be my imaginary friend forever. How do you think you'd like that?" That quieted him for the time being, letting her know he didn't much like the idea.
She grew increasingly frustrated at how difficult it proved to learn anything, though. While they may have won an encouraging victory in the last battle, it was nerve-wracking just waiting around blindly with almost no knowledge of the enemy, no clue whatsoever about their remaining strength or what they might next bring to bear. It was after another fruitless day of information gathering that someone knocked on their inn door. Cart-Dragger opened it to see a scruffy, disheveled man of middle years.
"Are you the ones who have been asking about elementals?" he asked, regarding her and her friends uncertainly.
"What are you looking so funny at?" Lars asked, polishing his axe while a tired Ruth lay spread-eagled on her bed.
"Well, after hearing that you were a visiting duchess and her assistants, I expected you to be more... polished."
Cart-Dragger chuckled. "I've spent more of my adult life as a wandering warrior for hire than doing noblewomanly things, so it is what it is. Anyway, do you have information for us?"
"I do not exactly have it myself, but might know a place where you can find it. In my youth I once heard talk of druids in a hidden valley, whose affinity to nature was second to none. Maybe they still live there, and have insight into these hostile elementals others do not."
"With their exotic knowledge," Lars said with uncharacteristic excitement, "maybe they'll know a way to help Allen too!" Following a head injury suffered in the war, Lars' close friend had never fully regained his wits, and after many years they hadn't found a cure yet.
"Is this valley far?" Ruth asked, still resting in the same inelegant position. "Not sure it would be the best idea to go halfway around the world in pursuit of some rumor."
"It should not be that far, if it exists. Word had it they were in the mountains only a couple hundred miles south of here."
"Sounds promising," Cart-Dragger said. A couple hundred miles would be nothing on their winged mounts, after all. "How is the valley hidden?"
"I'm not sure. The tale I heard was not very specific, unless I misremember."
"If we flew over the mountain range," Ruth suggested, "we could probably see the valley from above and have our mounts put us down in it. It's probably hard to see the entrance from outside for it to be considered hidden, but I doubt it's concealed from a sky view too. Good thing you befriended those elementals, huh Cart-Dragger?"
"It's certainly convenient being able to fly at times." She turned to their informant and removed some iron coins from her belt pouch. "As thanks for your trouble."
He looked at the money in her extended hand, but didn't take it. "I don't need a reward. I know you're just trying to help out humanity, or what's left of it anyway, and all I'd do with extra coin is buy more drink to hurt my liver with. So keep it for your coffers, and hopefully that extra little bit will be put to better use in your work than I could."
Pleasantly surprised, she nodded. "Then you have our gratitude." His appearance wasn't the best, but to see such selflessness from an ordinary person like him gave hope for their race. "Thank you, and I hope you and your family will continue to be safe."
"You too, and I wish you success in your quest—for all our sakes."
The man left, and Ruth sat up to comment. "So your automatic reaction to anyone volunteering information is to offer bribes? He didn't, but some people might take offense at you acting like all everyone cares about is money."
She gave a nervous
chortle. "Yeah, but many would be happy for a reward or 'bribe' as you inaccurately say and might not even be satisfied without it. I'm still not the most comfortable with trying to be a leader outside my home city, so it isn't easy for me to judge who wants or doesn't want payment."
Lars punched Ruth in the arm. "Don't worry about it, Ruthless is just trying to give you trouble. You're doing things the right way, I'm sure the people who would appreciate a reward far outnumber those who would take offense to one especially in these rough times."
Ruth punched him back harder, making him rub his tricep. "Even so, handing out currency like we couldn't be rid of it fast enough won't do much good for our treasury."
Cart-Dragger put hands on her hips. "It was just a small amount, and we're not getting tips from strangers every day. This is hardly something you two need to be arguing over, except just to argue."
They looked at each other, then shared a laugh. "I suppose it's so," Lars said.
Ruth averted her gaze. "I guess I can let it slide this time."
With a grin, Cart-Dragger mused, "The way you two bicker, I wouldn't surprised if Ruth ends up marrying you instead of Scott."
"What?! Since when have I indicated an interest in either of those men?"
"I'm mostly teasing about Scott, but watching the sparring sessions between you and Lars, there's clearly a lot of passion between the two of you."
Lars recoiled. "It's not that kind of passion! Ruth still holds a grudge over me knocking her out in public before, so she goes at me extra hard in practice."
"Extra... hard?"
"You did not knock me out," Ruth protested, "you just knocked me down! Allen tells me I was still trying to raise my legs."
Lars cocked his head. "If you don't remember that, doesn't it seem likely you were just reflexively doing it while unconscious?"
"I, uh, I would still have come back and beaten you if you continued the fight and didn't try to act all gentlemanly by walking away!"
Cart-Dragger hadn't seen the fight in question, but found Ruth's obsession over it after all this time a hair over the top. She sighed and asked, "Shouldn't we get going and continue this on the way if you must? We don't have any pressing business here, and the sooner we have more knowledge the better."
They all agreed, and headed to the old warehouse Jasper had lent them for the flying God Soldiers to stay in. A bunch of people young and old alike loitered outside, trying to look in and get a peek at the unfamiliar creatures. Cart-Dragger felt a bit sorry for their non-human allies, thinking she wouldn't like to be gawked at so, but then she didn't know if they minded. She and her companions entered and told E and the bird-lizards their intentions. "Druids?" one of the latter asked in a shrill, whistlelike voice. "What are those?"
"Druids are..." Ruth scratched her head. "What are they anyway?"
"The man mentioned they have a strong affinity to nature," Lars recalled, "so I guess they're probably flower and tree lovers."
She gazed towards their elemental comrades. "Animals too? Seems we'll be bringing along the right friends to sway them to our cause."
"We have been altered by the empire," E pointed out. "I would not be certain our metal hides will be well received by lovers of nature."
Cart-Dragger sneered. "If that's the case, it would all be the fault of one of our party's maniacal father."
"One of our party? Oh, I see."
Hardly honorable of you to insult the dead, or take jabs at me when I can't do anything about them.
"People who all but destroy the world are never off bounds for insults. But E makes a good point, maybe we shouldn't let the druids see us on our allies before explaining ourselves if possible. They could drop us off near the mountain range instead of flying us directly into the valley, and then we can try to find the way in on our own."
"That sounds like a fine idea," E said. "If nobody disagrees, we'll go with it unless you can't find the path."
They flew south, the range of relatively short stubby peaks coming into view not a full day later. From above they could glimpse a rare sight these days—a thick wood nestled between the mountains, through the canopies of which they could not see the ground. Lars pointed at it. "A forest! Such fertile land here, surrounded by so much barrenness?"
"We might not have been able to land in there anyway," Ruth said.
Cart-Dragger hadn't expected to see this much greenery either. "Maybe the nature lovers have their share of know-how on preserving land, which could also help us? Or they could have just gotten lucky."
"A third option," E proposed, "is that the lifeforce of the earth is particularly strong here. Might be why they chose to stay in this location in the first place."
They landed a short distance from the mountains and dismounted. "You three wait here," Cart-Dragger instructed their mounts. "Hopefully we won't be long. If you need shelter, you could use that outcropping over there, but try not to fly too high to minimize the chances of the druids spotting you."
The human trio explored around the section of the mountain range closest to where they had seen the valley, looking out carefully for any caves or gaps through which they could reach it. But after a couple days, they still didn't find anything. "Maybe the way to it isn't around here?" Lars said. "It could even be the path starts on the other side of the mountains, and we have to take the long way there."
Cart-Dragger bit her lip. "Possible, but I'm not too keen on wasting that much time searching for the entrance. Let's just keep looking for today, then if we can't find it have the elementals lower us down with ropes or something." At his questioning look, she added, "I know I said it might not be best to let the druids see our mounts, but otherwise we might waste weeks trying to get in. There could be another attack while we're away, and I'm already getting worried."
They continued without success until the sky began to dim, and Cart-Dragger grew discouraged. She was about to give up and settle for having the God Soldiers drop them in when Ruth said, "Look, up there! Is that an opening?"
Her eyes followed where her friend pointed, and squinting she made out a narrow crack in the mountainside twenty feet up, barely perceptible in the evening light. She had already glanced over that area, but failed to notice the crevasse. "How the hell did you see that when I missed it? It's not like I was only concentrating on features at ground level and never looked above."
Ruth laughed. "I would take credit for having supreme vision, but I doubt you'd believe it. I just got lucky. The moonlight shone just right on it when I looked that way, and let me see there was some depth to the crack."
It could still lead nowhere though, and end a few feet in. She hoped they weren't getting their spirits up for nothing. They took out their climbing tools and headed up, Cart-Dragger not really needing the picks but not going out of her way to eschew greater ease. To her relief the opening appeared to lead further into the mountain, instead of being a superficial wound in its face. It was so narrow they had to squeeze in sideways through it, but widened to a more comfortable breadth once within. They lit torches and advanced down a long mostly straight tunnel, with a few bends but no forks or anything that might get them lost.
"How long is this thing?" Lars asked. "It feels like we've been walking for hours and we still can't even see the end."
Ruth looked sidelong at him. "I'm sure we have walked that long. Unless we're to be very disappointed, this passage should lead us all the way through the mountain, so we can't expect a short trip." She gazed at Cart-Dragger. "Should we rest? If we keep going it'll be really dark by the time we come out the other side, and that might not be the safest for us if the druids prove less than welcoming."
"Might it not be dangerous to stay in here too?"
"We'll keep somebody on watch, and it should at least be easier to see anything coming than if we were out in the dark wood."
"Yeah, let's rest," Cart-Dragger decided. "I'm not that worried about being able to handle ourselves in the night, but visiting the druids so l
ate would likely not make the greatest first impression either."
They took turns sleeping in the middle of a long stretch of passage, to give them more leeway to detect someone coming. But no one did. When Cart-Dragger's turn came to keep watch, she mulled over what the next step might be if these druids did have some insight into what was going on. Should they continue to prepare defenses for the next attack simply with better knowledge, or might the time come to take the fight to the enemy? They hardly had the resources to send an army to another continent if there was truth to what Obo said, though. What she really hoped was that they could get a clue as to why these elementals attacked them. Even if she felt quite outraged over the lives they had undeservingly taken, she would be open to peace talks with whoever or whatever led the opposition. Better that than bloody war until one side was driven to extinction or nearly so, and if they knew the enemy's motivations they might finally be able to start such a discourse.
If we still had access to the empire's technology at its peak, Maximilian said, we could put those creatures under our control instead of humankind's very existence being threatened by them.
She'd thought he couldn't read her mind at will, but maybe that wasn't needed to guess what she was thinking about. "They're sentient creatures, or at least some of them are. Even if they oppose us, I'm not sure how right it would be to enslave them all."
What would be worse, enslavement or death? If you cannot change the course you are on, one side will likely suffer either fate.
"My instinct would be to say death is worse, but assuming the enslavement would be permanent with no hope of release, I might have to contemplate it a little more. Still, it's my hope that either won't be necessary for a whole side involved. If we can come to an understanding..."
Yet you did not even try to negotiate with the being you called Tentacle Nest, instead going straight for the kill against it.
