Team Two, Liam, and Mark met “Tom Cooper” at the outer camp less than an hour after Serenity’s alarm went off. He was the last one there, because he’d stopped to eat some breakfast. If he couldn’t have a good night’s sleep, he wanted to at least be fed.
There was no sign of any Night Fire on any of them, even Mike, despite the fact that he’d seen it on Mike the previous evening. Serenity hoped that was because of his work the night before. He didn’t understand Faith well enough to be entirely certain, but Tek had agreed that it was a possible outcome based on what he saw in the vision.
The most annoying thing was that it didn’t line up with Affinities in the way he was used to; he’d probably used the fact that they were the same curse laid at the same time to affect it without touching either Time or Space in terms of Affinity. Serenity filed that fact under the mental heading “Time magic is bullshit magic even when it doesn’t use the Time Affinity.” Making a curse not happen wasn’t as egregious as a prophecy but it was close.
When they reached the building, Serenity took a long look at it. Unlike Team Two, it seemed to leak Night Fire, though oddly enough he couldn’t see it through the walls; only the openings showed the hot darkness. When Serenity examined the building more carefully, he could see that the stone walls had melted even more than during the initial collapse.
Despite the damage, Serenity could still see the layout of the original building. It had slumped faster in some areas than others and that made its original shape possible to discern. Serenity’s eyes moved past the darkness to focus on a spot that was seemingly inconsequential except for what he’d seen in his vision.
The spot where the broken trident of Poseidon fell.
Serenity floated over to the spot; as he’d more than half expected, there was something buried in the ground. He started to reach for it, then remembered the mini-wand he’d infused with a telekinesis spell the previous day. It would be vastly weaker now, but should still be capable of picking something up out of the mud. It would be useless in another few hours if he didn’t use it, so there was really no reason to save it.
Serenity carefully cleared the dirt out of the way and picked up the metal fragments with the telekinesis. They seemed to have bent a little when they landed, but the shape was still clear. Serenity moved the two broken pieces until they aligned but didn’t quite touch; it was definitely a trident. The broken edges lined up well enough that Serenity could see where the metal was deformed; it very obviously hadn’t simply broken on its own. It had been cut.
“What’s that?” Liam had followed Serenity, but he’d been quiet. Of course, he also hadn’t been as fast as Serenity; floating was a lot easier than walking through the extremely fine dirt that filled the area.
“A trident,” Serenity stated the obvious. “I think it came off the building before it fell. I suspect this may have been a temple.” He’d assumed Poseidon during the vision, but Poseidon wasn’t even close to the only option. There had been many sea gods throughout history; more than that, was there even any reason to assume that the gods A’Atla worshiped were the Greek gods?
Whoever this belonged to, however, there was something about the symbol that drew Serenity’s attention. That was true even in the vision. Come to think of it, he didn’t remember Liam noticing it during the vision. “Did you see it when you arrived?”
Liam shook his head. “Not that I noticed. We didn’t take any pictures, either, but there might be some footage from the camera I’m wearing.”
“Camera?” Serenity hadn’t noticed one, but he also hadn’t checked for one.
Liam nodded. “The resolution’s not great, but it’s been useful a few times when we wanted to reconstruct how things were laid out before we collected them. I’m not sure it’ll have enough detail, but we can look.”
“We should. I’d like to know if it was there.” Serenity turned his attention back to the broken trident. Why did it keep drawing his attention? Checking it with Magesight didn’t reveal any magic, even in the stronger active mode, so that wasn’t it.
Well, he had assumed that it was a god’s symbol. Maybe there was something about that?
Serenity brought it closer to himself to examine the cut marks. They were almost more a tear than a cut; the entry point was sharp, but everything after that was torn. It definitely looked like it had been forced rather than cleanly sliced. That was the sign of muscle, not magic. Unfortunately, that was all it told Serenity; he was no CSI investigator to determine what sort of weapon it was from a few traces.
There was no obvious damage on the building, but that didn’t tell Serenity much. A’Atla’s stone was sturdy. A closer look at the stone showed that his belief from the vision that it was grown by A’Atla and faked into looking like it was built normally seemed likely; he’d have to remember to pass that particular observation on to Liam.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Serenity floated the broken trident into more or less what he thought its original position was; there were some shiny spots on the surface that didn’t seem to quite match the rest of the surface. When he laid the trident along them, it was clear that they were where it had touched the surface.
When Serenity floated the bottom part into place, he accidentally allowed the two edges to touch for a moment. It was difficult to avoid because the way the metal tore left pieces sticking out on the lower portion of both fragments. He’d meant to keep them separate in case there was something to learn from them, but it was a low priority. Any remaining evidence had probably been washed or polished away by the seawater and he certainly didn’t expect anything to happen when they touched.
Serenity heard the clink and reminded himself to be more careful. The lower portion of the trident seemed to slip a little in his mental fingers, rotating to match the upper portion even more closely before they both pulled away from him a little and anchored themselves to the wall.
Serenity blinked at that. They shouldn’t have been able to do that, especially since they still showed no sign of mana. He checked for essence as well but once again came up empty.
A figure seemed to step out from behind the trident even though there was no space there. He pulled it off the wall and stood, floating about two feet above the ground. He matched the trident’s height, which left him at about three feet tall. The figure was clearly an illusory figment, partially translucent and somewhat blurred. He said something Serenity didn’t understand and in fact didn’t even recognize. It wasn’t the language Amani had spoken; he could tell that much.
“What?” After a moment, Serenity realized he’d spoken in English and repeated the question in Bridge. Even if this was Earth, he had a surprising amount of evidence that Earth had never been quite as separate from the rest of the universe as he’d always thought. Bridge had a better chance of being understood than any other language Serenity could think of offhand; it was enough to make him wish he had another of the translation bracelets like the one he’d loaned to Amani.
There was a pause. During the pause, the figure didn’t move or even visibly breathe. After almost a minute, it cocked its head and asked, “Do you understand this language?”
It was Bridge. The accent was a little odd, but it was completely understandable. Serenity nodded. “Yes.”
The image nodded. “Good. I don’t know how you found me before my brother, outlander, nor do I know how you triggered this; there have been no ascensions in centuries and this world is hostile even without my father’s opposition. My sister says I am overcautious to prepare these, and she is the strategist; she should know. I wonder what she would say if she knew I prepared a Last Message to be heard by an outlander.”
Serenity could hear the clear emphasis on the words “Last Message.” It wasn’t a phrase he was particularly familiar with, but he could guess what it meant. He was listening to a recording; the pause earlier was probably when it was retrieved.
The figure smiled ruefully and shook his head. “I shouldn’t talk about my family so, should I? Ah, it doesn’t matter. I should probably redo this, but it’s unlikely it will ever be seen; even if it is, so what? It is hard to be embarrassed when you are dead.”
Serenity didn’t agree with that. While the physiological reactions weren’t there when you were undead, the emotional reactions definitely could be. From context, it was clear the figure didn’t mean undead, however, so Serenity had to grant that it was possible he was correct. It was possible oblivion waited after death for those who did not rise; Serenity had never met anyone who could really say for certain.
Perhaps believers truly did go to their pantheons’ afterlives, but if so Serenity had never met anyone who came back; undead didn’t remember such a thing but that didn’t mean much. Even if that was the case, Serenity had no doubt that spirits living in an afterlife, whatever it might be, could probably be embarrassed.
“So, outlander, since you found me first, I have a task for you. Find my sister and tell her that she was wrong; Father survived. The last war never ended and now he has killed me. If you cannot find the Lady of Strategy, seek the Messenger Lord; he will know how to find her. Tell them the Lord of Earth and Sea has fallen at the hands of his father and place my trident in their hands; they will know how to lay me to rest once my killer is dead. Beware the Lords of Light and Lightning for I do not know where their loyalties lie. Other than the two I have named, the only one I know you can trust is the Guard at the Deep Gate; should he have turned against us, it would be far worse than merely my father’s survival.” The figure blurred, then vanished.
Moments after the figure disappeared, there was another soft clink of metal as the trident separated from the wall and started to fall as two separate pieces. Serenity caught it with his telekinesis spell but continued staring at the wall for a long moment.
Why couldn’t the figure have used names or at least identified himself? Yes, Serenity could guess that “Lord of Earth and Sea” probably meant some variation of Poseidon, but he certainly didn’t act much like the Poseidon of legend. It was still possible it was someone else.
Serenity didn’t think he’d be able to comply with the man’s wishes, whoever he might be. It had been thousands of years; the chances that he’d be able to find any of the people mentioned was slim; the likelihood that the information was important was even slimmer. Everyone knew A’Atla sank, after all.
“Is there something interesting about that wall?” Liam’s voice pulled Serenity out of his contemplation of the odd message.
“Didn’t you see the message?” Serenity turned away from the wall. He’d want to do something about the trident, but what? He normally just shoved things in his Rift, but he wasn’t certain if he wanted to do that with this or not. It was strange.
“Message?” Liam frowned and shook his head. “You set the trident on the wall, then dropped it. Is that where it came from?”
Liam hadn’t seen anything, apparently. There could be several possible reasons for that; unfortunately, asking Aide wouldn’t really help since Aide saw whatever Serenity did. “Yes, I think that’s where it fell from.”