Hours later, only one of Serenity’s preparations mattered: the towels he’d placed under Blaze kept him from becoming chilled while he recovered. Serenity tried to listen to what happened outside the bathing room, but everything was so muffled that all he learned was that people came and went; he vaguely made out the door to the suite opening a few times and the murmur of voices, too soft to understand without opening the door.
No one checked the bathing room. It was possible the rest of the suite was searched, but Serenity doubted it. All he could do was wait. However much he wanted to take Blaze and go, his options were limited. The best way out, having Ita create a portal, wasn’t really an option at all; the Mound was warded. Even if it wasn’t, the building they were in was also warded. Without the chance to closely examine all of the wards, teleporting was a fool’s idea, even with a portal.
Serenity hadn’t even checked to see if he could reach Ita. While he probably could, it was all too likely to trigger a ward. He didn’t want to depend on the chance that it didn’t.
His better option was to put Blaze back in his Rift, then make his way out carefully in his Sovereign form. That would work, but it was a terrible option because Blaze could come to at any time and time in the Origin was bad for one’s sanity. If he thought it would be fast, Serenity might risk it, but getting out would take hours at best. It might even take several days if he had to take a long route. He didn’t think that was likely, but several hours was entirely too long when he didn’t know how long Blaze would be out. If it got close to morning and Blaze wasn’t conscious, he’d revisit the decision.
He did take the time to fully examine the bathing room. It was essentially just what he’d seen at a first glance, but his second examination included looking for anywhere he might be able to escape from the room in his Sovereign form. Around the door was obvious, but it wasn’t the only place.
The clean water pipes were possible, but probably not a good idea; they would be filled with water once he was past the valves that shut them off, and his Sovereign form didn’t move through water well at all. The drains had a similar issue; while there was a chance that they had a clear space at the top, chances were that they were completely filled with water at least in places and that meant they really wouldn’t work as an exit.
There was, however, another option. There were some vents in both the ceiling and at the floor level, where the floor met the wall, that seemed to be for air. At a guess, they were probably part of the heating and cooling system; he didn’t know if they led to a way out or not but it was entirely possible. If he heard someone coming, he might be able to shove Blaze through the Rift then escape temporarily into a vent for safety.
He didn’t like the idea, but it was probably better than being caught and having to fight his way out. Fighting while carrying an unconscious body was difficult and all too likely to get Blaze badly injured. Serenity knew he’d be fine, but he didn’t want to risk Blaze.
Fortunately, that didn’t happen.
Serenity hadn’t heard any noise from outside the room for more than an hour when Blaze finally stirred. Serenity took that as a reason to return to his human form, with his armor-self settled around his body. He stood and watched as Blaze took his own sweet time to wake up.
It seemed like longer than it was because Serenity was impatient. He knew that, and he knew better than to rush Blaze, but that didn’t make him feel any more patient.
Blaze finally sat up. He looked around and seemed confused for a long moment before he shook himself then climbed to his feet inside the tub. “Serenity? Is everything good? It doesn’t look like we were found.”
Serenity shook his head. “We weren’t. As far as I can tell, no one’s looked for us at all.”
Blaze let out a deep sigh of relief, then climbed out of the tub. “Good. I hoped that would work, but you never know when someone will decide to do something unusual. I hope I wasn’t out for too long?”
Serenity shook his head. “Hours. I wasn’t yet desperate enough to try to teleport out through the wards, but you were really worrying me.”
“Ah.” Blaze frowned at the news. “I hoped it would be faster than that, but I didn’t really spend enough time in Eternus’s body. It sounds like I also did very poorly at synchronizing with him; that’s probably for the best, now, but it would have made things faster. I guess I’m just not committed enough.”
“You did fine,” Serenity protested. “You got us where we needed to be and we’re safe for now; that’s enough. The fact that you were willing to…” he trailed off and waved in the general direction of where they’d left Eternus’s body. “I wouldn’t want to do what you did.”
Blaze looked down for a moment, then seemed to steel himself. “It was necessary. We needed to know more than we did and we might not have had much time; I wasn’t certain what the Memory of Mastery was going to do. It seems like he abandoned us, which is really the easiest option. We might have had time for you to question Eternus’s corpse after all. I think this worked out as well as any plan could have, so I don’t regret it all that much.”
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Serenity had the feeling that Blaze was understating how much he disliked what he’d done to make Serenity feel better about it. There wasn’t any way to push on that without devaluing Blaze’s sacrifice, however, at least not that Serenity could think of. Perhaps he’d be best to simply accept Blaze’s words at face value? “Thank you. You’re right that things seem to have worked out, and a lot of that is because of you. I don’t know what I’d have done without your help.”
Blaze shrugged. “You’d have challenged the Memories of Blood and Light. I have no doubt you’d have found out about that option, from the planet if nothing else. You’d have won and everything would have been taken care of. I didn’t do that much.”
Serenity shook his head. “This way, I know it’s handled. I know Rissa is safe and I know the Earth is safe. That’s worth a great deal.”
Blaze looked uncomfortable. After a moment, he overtly looked around the bathroom. “We should get out of here. If I get up into the ducts, you can follow me, right?”
Serenity nodded. “I will be slow if there isn’t enough room.”
Blaze nodded. “I expected that. I don’t entirely remember it, but Eternus had a plan of the ducts for this entire building; there are passages built into the ceiling that are large enough for people and they let out near a number of the vents, some in the walls and some in the ceiling. This room is one of the places I do remember.”
Serenity frowned. “The vents aren’t nearly large enough for a person. Why-” he stopped as he realized what Blaze implied. “You mean the Memory of Blood spied on the other Memories. Are you sure there wasn’t anyone watching the Memory of Light or listening to us now?”
Blaze nodded. “Eternus didn’t think the Memory of Light needed to be watched very closely; he was confident in her loyalty. He wasn’t the one who built the observation points, though; Eternus thought they went all the way back to the First Memory or Mimir.”
“The First Memory was real?” Serenity was actually surprised by that. He’d half expected that he was dealing with a legend, since the Memory of Light didn’t seem to know what the First Memory looked like.
“Very real,” Blaze stated flatly. “Eternus thought the First Memory was probably behind Mimir’s death; I can’t be certain if that was true or simply what Eternus would have done in the First Memory’s place, but Eternus was quite convinced that the man existed and that he codified the rules that are still in place for Eadsyt today. This was apparently Mimir’s main temple before the god died. After his death, there seems to have been a war that ended with the First Memory holding Sovereignty over Eadsyt. I tried to search for more than that while you talked to the Memory of Light, but that’s all I found that was directly relevant to the First Memory.”
Serenity nodded at his friend. He hadn’t meant to send Blaze on a scavenger hunt through whatever memories he’d gained from the Memory of Blood; that sounded quite unpleasant. “We should get moving, then. The sooner we get back to the Death’s Wings, the sooner we can get off this planet.”
Blaze nodded. “I need to gather up a few people, but that can happen once we’re back at the ship if we can’t catch up with them on the way. Follow me.”
Blaze didn’t wait any longer. He seemed to shimmer, then a tongue of flame darted for the vent in the ceiling, followed by a man made of fire that warped as it flickered through the narrow openings. Somehow, the flame didn’t blacken its surroundings; even though it should have been blazingly hot by its appearance, Blaze seemed to be able to control the actual temperature he emitted well enough to not scorch the tile or even the paint.
It took Serenity quite a bit longer to shift to his Sovereign form and make his way up into the vents. His shadowy other form didn’t move nearly as quickly as Blaze’s fire.
Blaze was right about the passageways. There was a complete network in the ceiling. Some seemed to be there for maintenance of the ventilation system, but many of the passageways seemed to be purely for observation purposes. It seemed entirely possible that the system had started out as either one.
There was no one else in the passageways, a fact that surprised Serenity. He couldn’t ask Blaze about it, since he didn’t want to alert someone who was there that he simply hadn’t noticed, but the reason seemed obvious enough anyway: whoever was supposed to be there knew Eternus was dead. If Eternus was the only Memory with people stationed in the ceiling as spies, it was entirely possible that they were trying to get what they could now that they no longer had jobs.
Serenity couldn’t quite believe that no other Memories had people stationed in the maintenance passages. He didn’t expect the Memory of Light to have anyone and he had no real insight into the Memory of Breath, but the Memory of Mastery definitely struck him as the sort of person that would have spies. If nothing else, he had to have found out about Blaze and how to contact him somehow. Spies was the easy answer, though it was also possible the Memory of Breath told him.
Whether they were seen or not on the way out, Serenity didn’t see anyone in the secret area before they reached a room near the exit. They did hear people several times, and the first two rooms they tried to exit through were occupied. It wasn’t until the third possible exit from the vents that they actually slipped back into the more normal parts of the building.
It took Serenity almost as long to resume his human disguise as it did to float through the vent and to the ground. From there, Blaze led Serenity out of the building. They were cautious until they were farther away, but it was dark and quiet and Blaze knew an exit from the Mound that was at least apparently unwatched.
Dawn came shortly after they entered Thot once again.
When they finally reached the Death’s Wings, Serenity went to find Rissa. It was over. Rissa was safe and Earth was safe. Neither was an absolute, but the world wasn’t absolute.
He’d achieved everything he came back in time to do. He could recognize that. There was an obscure sense of loss from the loss of that purpose, but at the same time he knew he’d already found a new purpose in life. He had Rissa and he had Jenna and he had five worlds to deal with. He had quite a few friends, as well; Blaze was probably the closest friend he’d had since childhood other than Rissa, and that relationship was completely different. Life was going to be anything but empty.