She hadn’t believed him?

Serenity figuratively shook himself. Of course she hadn’t believed him! Would he have believed someone who told him the Earth was destroyed if he hadn’t seen it? He wouldn’t have. Not without evidence. This was just as big a loss to him as that had been to Vengeance. Maybe bigger; Vengeance had already lost everything, after all. The fact that he’d also lost his vengeance since he never figured out who killed Rissa was relatively inconsequential.

Relatively.

Serenity knew who it was, now, but it wasn’t difficult to ignore the fact. Rissa was alive and well. Macho would never be able to threaten her again; that was enough. He was no longer Vengeance and that was far, far better than achieving vengeance for something that never happened.

Serenity turned his attention back to the young woman in front of him. He wasn’t certain how old she was, but everyone seemed young to him sometimes these days. “No, I wasn’t lying. I wasn’t even overstating things; I told you what I know about it. I don’t-”

Serenity stopped. He did know something more about it now. “The sigil is … that is, it’s how Ea left a message. Can you help me figure out who he’s talking about?”

Amani took a step forward and reached out towards the trident but her hand stayed several inches away. After a moment, she pulled it back quickly, as if something had stung her. “I am no priestess to meddle in the affairs of the gods.”

Serenity started to move forward, but she didn’t seem like she was actually hurt; it reminded him of when he got too close to a painful memory. He’d give her time to think; he certainly needed it sometimes.

Amani stared at the broken trident for a long moment before she whispered, “I will try.”

Serenity nodded. He tried to keep his voice soft and gentle as he offered, “When you’re ready.”

“No.” Amani’s hand clenched. “Not when I’m ready. Now. If Ea left a message, I want to know.” Her voice was far stronger at the end than the beginning, even though it still wavered a bit as though she were suppressing tears.

Sometimes you had to try to do something even if it was useless. Serenity knew that all too well. He tried to hold his voice steady and not show his pity; pity wouldn’t help anyone. It would only make Amani feel worse. At least, that’s how it always worked when he saw it; it usually made Vengeance want to go kill something.

He’d take it slow and give her the time she needed yet allow her to feel useful. “Please sit down, this could take a bit.” Serenity hoped it would; that meant he’d learn something useful.

Amani pulled a chair away from the table and around to the end, where she could lean on the table without touching the broken sigil. Serenity wouldn’t have realized that was why she moved if she hadn’t proceeded to do exactly that. Amani set her arms on the table and buried her head in them for a long moment. When she looked up, her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“What-” Amani squealed as she spoke, then cleared her voice with a quick cough. “What did Ea say?”

“He gave me a message for the lady of Strategy, his sister.” Serenity paused. Maybe it would be better to show the message to her? Aide had recorded it the same way he recorded everything Serenity saw. “Would you like to see it?”

“You can show me?” Amani’s eyes widened and she sat bolt upright. “Yes, definitely!”

Serenity pulled out a tablet; Aide could manage the playback but, unlike Serenity, Amani needed a way to see it.

Amani watched the video all the way through twice, then had Serenity take it to the relevant portion. “Ea’s father. That’s an odd thing to say, I don’t know who Ea’s father is. I guess he could mean Cronus? That would be like describing Ishtar as his sister.”

At Serenity’s puzzled look, Amani elaborated. “They’re not lineally related. At least, I don’t think they were? The terms I heard were always the spiritual ones. Cronus was the Lord of A’Atla before Ea, so he was his Father, not his father.”

The words clearly overlapped in English, even though they didn’t in A’Atla’s language. That was annoying but not that unusual. It was clearly a term of respect and a relationship indicator, simply not an indicator of a blood relationship.

“Ishtar is the Lady of Strategy, she’s the one who masterminded the campaign against Cronus. They split the Two Jewels when they first locked Cronus away; she took T’Ruk and Ea took A’Atla. The Lord of Light has to be Apollo; he’s younger. He didn’t fight in the First War, but he was a legend in the War the Great Weapons came from.” Amani paused and looked at Serenity. “The ones in the Vault.”

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Serenity nodded. He’d already guessed that they were weapons of war, though the fact that there was only one war they came from was both new and worrying information. What else had once been out there?

“The Lord of Lightning is probably Perkunas. I don’t know why Ea would pick him out; he was mighty in the War like Apollo, but he returned to his homeland quietly afterwards. I don’t think I’ve heard anything about him since then. The Messenger is Sarama; she is often about the city. She did not fight, at least not with weapons, but she was the one who found and returned most of the weapons in the Vault. I’m certain that is why Ea believes she is loyal.” Amani paused and counted on her fingers before restarting the video one more time.

Serenity didn’t recognize half the names; they must have gotten lost over the centuries. The other possibility was that the names of A’Atla’s deities ended up somewhere other than the Greek pantheon; he was no scholar of ancient mythology. The only ones he was certain he recognized were Cronus and Apollo, although he’d definitely heard the name Ishtar somewhere.

Amani hit pause right after Ea said “Deep Gate” and visibly shivered. “If the Gate is open … but no. Of course the Gate is open. That’s why they were there, not the Vault! No one should have known where the Vault was but anyone who was once behind the Gate would remember!” She whispered at first but her voice rose until she was nearly shouting by the end.

Serenity had no idea what she was talking about. “Amani?”

Her head whipped around. “Tell me they didn’t get it open!”

Her eyes pleaded with Serenity but he had no reassurance for her. “I don’t even know what it is. Where is it?”

Amani seemed to deflate. “How would you know?” She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “The Deep Gate is under the Vault; that’s why the Vault was built there. It’s near the most protected section of A’Atla, the Gate to the Underworld. It has to be why they attacked A’Atla, to free someone. That’s how the War started, when Cronus escaped. If he’s alive, he knows where the Gate is.”

Serenity didn’t share his next thought, that Amani was wrong. The Deep Gate might well have been an objective, but it wasn’t why someone attacked A’Atla. A’Atla was a cluster of objectives for whoever attacked and it was clear they’d achieved a large one when they sank the island, whether or not they’d released anyone from the Deep Gate.

He still wasn’t entirely certain how they’d gotten A’Atla to sink, either. His best guess was that they’d used the island against itself, destabilizing the mana in the area until it dove for its own protection in accordance with the last captain’s instructions. It was entirely possible that, with the mana levels as low as they were, the fighting had done it on its own and the sinking was accidental. Deliberate or not, it couldn’t happen the same way in the future; Lex had countermanded those instructions.

Serenity once again wished there was some sort of record to look back on, something more than the saved mana level readings that Aide had to interpret and display. Even a little information about what was going on in the outside world would have helped him understand what the readings meant.

Whether or not Amani was right about the Deep Gate being the attackers’ only objective, she was almost certainly correct about it being an objective, which made it worth checking into. “Can you show me where the Deep Gate is?” He paused as he realized she hadn’t answered the original question, either. “Who’s the Guard at the Deep Gate, for that matter?”

“Calu guards the Deep Gate. Guarded?” Amani froze for a moment, then shook her head. “I guess he isn’t there now, so yes, guarded. Calu and his Wolves watched the Gate that none could pass without the permission of A’Atla’s Lord. He barred the way to A’Atla’s Underworld for Cronus, as well. It is said that that is how Cronus escaped; he tricked Calu by calling on the long friendship they had, then struck him down and ran.”

Serenity hadn’t asked. He had no idea if Amani’s story was accurate; it sounded possible, but Serenity suspected there would be more to it. No one was careless with the holding cells for a god, not even other gods. Surely Calu hadn’t made such a basic mistake?

It probably didn’t matter; Calu was almost certainly not around anymore. Whether they’d broken into the Underworld or not, A’Atla was dead and abandoned. Only someone who could sustain themselves on mana and still live for millenia would have survived that long without an odd situation like Amani’s, so Serenity definitely hoped that both Calu and whatever was beyond the Deep Gate were both long gone.

Amani took a deep breath. “I can show you to the Gate. I can’t open it; only Calu could.”

Serenity was fairly confident he could open it. He hadn’t yet found anything that wouldn’t work for the Wizard of A’Atla unless it was actually broken. He’d found places where he’d have preferred to have more options, but that wasn’t something failing to work, that was the capability simply not existing. “Ea could probably open it, too. We’ll be fine.”

Amani climbed to her feet, as if she wanted to head to the Deep Gate right now.

Serenity held up a hand to tell her to stop. “In the morning, Amani. It’s a long walk from here, isn’t it? At least an hour each way?” He knew the Vault was that far, without A’Atla’s assistance, and it was well into the damaged area.

Amani sat back down. “I don’t … it’s just, I want to see. To know. Is that the reason I was trapped? I thought … I thought it was the Vault. My fault; I built it. I should be stuck in it when it kills my world. That it was my fate. Yet if it was all about the Deep Gate, was my disappearance really just because I was in the wrong place?”

Serenity shook his head. “It wasn’t the wrong place, unless all of A’Atla was the wrong place. We found no bodies in the passages; did I ever tell you that?”

Amani shook her head. “You didn’t. Are you telling me I’d have been able to get out if I were somewhere else?”

Serenity shook his head again, more vigorously. “No. I’m telling you that something happened to the bodies. We don’t know what. I take it you don’t, either?”

Amani shook her head. She didn’t seem as distracted by the puzzle as he’d hoped.