Tiktik and I are silently crying in each other’s arms, in meat space and thinkspace. I want to ask if she wants to join me in the Altross manor. I haven’t even told her yet that Dame Altross has been seemingly making progress thawing Teuila’s icy prison.
Tiktik gasps, “She what? That’s great news! Isn’t it?”
I flash a furtive half-smile while nodding, “Yeah, yeah I think so. The kobolds said they tried normal fire, and it wasn’t working, any water that melted away was instantly re-frozen. Dame Altross seemed to have a stash of things that could cause dragon’s fire, or something near it at least. She barely acknowledged that I was there at all, except when I stood in her way. I feel a bit bad about it, knowing she was trying to help, but I’m worried that she thinks Teuila is her descendant, Tabitha. I don’t know how this is going to shake out. She might have some belongings that have magic, she might lash out.”
Recalling something she said, I conjecture, “She said *they* told her Tabitha would come one last time, that Tabitha would need her help, one last time. She seemed ready for the ice, and knew it was there before it was uncovered, since it was lashed to the top of the wagon, tightly covered to prevent extra rain from just adding to its mass. That’s—. That’s weird, right? That’s like clairvoyance, or prescience, or divination.”
Tiktik nods emphatically, so I continue my conjecture, “If she had some sort of foresight into the matter, wouldn’t she—. The Sisters. The Sisters told her what she needed to hear, to be ready to help us. Did they trick her into thinking Teuila is Tabitha? Or—. We chose kindness, and they responded in turn. How much of our journey is being guided by them? By the thing they serve?”
Tiktik furrows her brow as she responds, “I don’t know Tiger. Can’t honestly say. I’ve heard about them, obvee, never really had cause to seek them out, interact. I mean, everyone dreams about it once in a while, some problem that you just don’t have an answer for, some mysteries in your life solved by mysterious cuckoo ladies that know everything, see everything, give you the answer you seek. Don’t you think they’d know if they were helping you out just to put you at risk? If they thought this far ahead, or maybe not ahead, but saw your journey, and figured a way to help you out?”
Drawing a deep breath, I sigh. I ponder for a while before answering, “Maybe, maybe you’re right. Something nags me about the situation though. My head’s all muddled, between despair, hopelessness, hope, grief, fear, anxiety, dread, anger, going on autopilot for weeks, I just can’t keep a conclusion straight. I could swear I learned some things. Something that would put this into perspective. It’s like, there was a conclusion given life, by some train of thought, then snuffed out, like a candle—. The candle. Lives. Past lives.”
My pulse quickens and my vision narrows. It tunnels to a pinprick, and my focus drifts backwards and forwards, dizzying me. Tabitha is Taylynn. Taylynn is Teuila. We can’t allow her to remember, or she dies. How do I know this? Why do I know this? This—. This can’t be real. This— Ow! Ow my brain! Wait, no, no! This one’s impor— Agh! I think I’m screaming in agony, but I don’t know why, I can’t understand where I am, or what I was thinking about. The pain itself is a screaming agony that rockets its way around the inside of my cranium, bouncing off the walls of the lobes of my brain. I think I might be panting with exhaustion, but I can’t make heads or tails of my senses.
Tiktik, cradling me as I slump against her begs, “Tiger? Tiger what’s going on? You were talking about coming to conclusions, and remembering things one second, then your head’s going all explodey with pain the next. Reggie? Focus, focus. Look at me. You’re okay. Whatever it is, you’re okay. Shhh, it’s okay.”
I blink away pained tears as the agony slowly subsides. All I know is that I need to get to Teuila’s side, soon. Tiktik nods as she wraps her arms around my neck, and sits across my arms. I carefully scooch my way out of the shallow, covered stretcher, and rise to my feet.
Tiago stands nearby, wearing an expression of impatience, as he demands, “And just where do you think you’re taking my patient, the young miss Clocktok?”
Tiktik giggles, and Tiago can’t keep up the facade as his countenance becomes one of jest. I wear a half smile that doesn’t reach my eyes, trying to enjoy the humor of my friends as Tiktik responds, “I’m older than you Santiago. Maybe twice or three times your age, I forget, and lost count.”
Tiago smirks, and snorts a single half laugh, before responding, “Well you don’t look a day over twenty five Tiktik. Reggie, look after her, make sure she doesn’t get into any trouble or move around too much, those ribs of hers aren’t healing properly. Bring her back straight away if she complains of any new pains. You my dear, *tell* Reggie if anything else starts to hurt. That’s an order.”
Tiktik smarts off in response, “Yes sir mister doctor sir!” before giggling.
Even I can’t help laughing a bit at the snarkiness of it, as Tiago shakes his head with a closed-eyed smile. Since I have Tiktik in my arms, I can’t hug Tiago on my way out, so I satisfice with gently bumping his bicep with my forehead on the way past. Afterwards, I rush past our carriage, waddling erratically as I carry Tiktik in a modified princess-carry while she snuggles against my collarbone, clinging to my neck. Thankfully we’re already inside the grounds, so we don’t need to worry about whatever spell or power that affects the exterior of the gate, that causes immense pain to Fae.
Dame Altross is standing with poise, and grace, her hands folded atop one another, her arms hanging low and even. She’s still staring at the icy prison containing My Wings, and its thawing is starting to pick up speed, as there’s less volume of ice to melt. I’m still concerned that one hunk of dragon dung, and a bunch of wood won’t be enough, or that we’ll get to a point where we end up broiling Teuila within the ice. The anxiety of it, and the hope fighting the despair within me, leaves me jittery as heck. Actually, my silent sonar indicates Dame Altross is pained too, her legs are faintly trembling, her back vibrates as the muscles strain to keep her poised.
Casting my senses about the nearby rooms, I alight on several luxurious chairs, and without asking permission, I float the most comfortable-seeming one through the rooms, towards Dame Altross with telekinesis. I want to get used to utilizing this power, make it second nature, a part of me. It soon will be. Dame Altross remains expressionless for a moment, then glances down at the chair, and casts a glare my way momentarily, before the faintest of smiles crosses her face, and she sits in it. Taking that as permission, I bring another chair into the room for myself, sitting as near the roaring fire as I safely can without setting Tiktik on fire.
Dame Altross clucks, seemingly in disapproval, at my, I don’t know, impropriety I guess. I know she’s not entirely snobbish, since she helped Tabitha become Taylynn, by way of getting her out of etiquette lessons and into fencing lessons. I also know that she worked her way up, with cunning, investing, and social graces. Still, for some reason, I have a distaste for nobility, or “the ruling class” as it were. Life might be better in the upper crust, but I’d hate myself, if the me that I am today, woke up tomorrow in some world where nobility matters, and I was suddenly part of some crapsack dickish royal family. Huff, sighing, I try to distract myself from this unproductive line of thinking.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
In a manner, it’s amazing how many things I can think about simultaneously, or how many things I can put on autopilot. Or, well, could. I lament the damage I’ve done to that portion of my brain, breaking the rules of magic, operating as a battlefield tactician, manually supplying all the thought power to both keep the mana conjured into constructs, as well as the thought power to grant them a semblance of will, and the ability to react. I sigh again as I wonder if I’ll ever recover from that damage, or the cored-out nerve pathways. My face droops when a realization dawns on me. It might be pointless to worry about whether or not I’ll recover. I could die in as few as three days.
It’s around a week or so of travel to get back to The Gap, and there’s no guarantees that Astridus and Olashax are still there. I—. I think I’m going to stick to my plan, my direction, and just hope that if I reduce my activeness to almost nothing, that I can live long enough to reunite with Lil. A plan, a direction. Stick to it Reggie. But wait. Go back a tick. The Gap, the Derbrightmine Dominion. It was sealed up. Paint a picture in your mindscape, take a moment between moments, slow time to a crawl. Walk through the scene.
The stony chasm walls loom near perfectly vertically til they join the mountainsides themselves, stretching above Rayileklia’s ceaseless cloud cover. There are a handful, no, several dozen buttes in the area, roughly anywhere from fifty to a hundred fifty feet tall, giving clearance for the dragons to sit atop some without being in danger of being in range of the cloud cover. The dragons had had kobold minions, ones that weren’t from The Gap kobold warrens that I knew of. Turn, look that way. During a flash of lightning, there’s a shadow cast by the edge of the rock chasm in a roughly rectangular shape, only a few feet high.
Extrapolate what you didn’t see, an area you didn’t move to. It’s the edge of a tunnel wall, an entrance. Trace out the layout of the interior of the Derbrightmine Dominion. This tunnel would have led into the murder holes, perfect for ambushing anyone who’d still been stationed there. Breathe deep, sigh slowly. Close your eyes. Feel the absence of time. Paint a portrait of the layout of the city itself, the avenues of attack. Recall areas that had been sealed off, where your scrying censor was shunted out of solid rock. The kobolds had a geokinetic, or geomancer. At least, before the Derbrightmine Dominion assault. The kobolds in service to Astridus and Olashax lost members, many members. The Don would have fought conventionally with a show of force. Paulette would have been the one to spot a priority target, and take it out.
The dragons would have had to be in humanoid guise to enter the Derbrightmine Dominion’s city through the small tunnel, but I don’t know if they’re any less durable in that form. Hell, they might be more durable if they maintain their mass, and increase in density by shrinking. They apparently maintain enough of their breath weapons to at least destroy buildings. Astridus didn’t stay to fight us when we first arrived, she thought us inconsequential, and was bored. Perhaps she’d used her breath weapon too many times, trying to melt through the stone that Miza kept conjuring. Focus, go back to the dwarves. Frannie would have been hidden away somewhere, recovering, under the strictest of guard, deep, sealed off, either manually, or by a dwarven geomancer. Because the Don was somewhere close to the front lines, and Paulette with him, the battle was lost in a matter of moments, the dragons had what they wanted. The trophy signifying the punishment for crossing Terrorzin. That means that dwarven families in the northern and southernmost quarters of the cities, may still be alive, if they didn’t explicitly join the fighting.
I begin to pant with exertion, straining my brain, picturing the series of events. Using educated guesses to paint a retrocognitive picture is almost like having psychometry about the events. When I’m able to think about a location, I can picture it from every angle I’ve ever viewed it at, and somehow put together an overhead map view, whenever I recall it. I recall parts of the Cragbeast warrens, those that I wasn’t on autopilot for. I recall the way to the room with the cervid skull carving in the beaver dam’s subsurface tunnel structures. I recall the paths we took when scouting for livable regions—.
Why did the humans agree to not harvest the ancient arbor on Can’Z’aas? I remember that being a sticking point, but I didn’t learn until far, far later how important the trees were, that they are like batteries, and filters, for the very lifestream of the planet, all at once. Why did anyone do anything that I suggested? I know I used threat of violence in a lot of cases, but when they started cooperating—. Where was I going with my thoughts? Oh, right, the dwarves. I’d give it sixty five percent odds that there’s at least half the dwarves still alive in the Derbrightmine Dominion, Frannie included. I’d probably say seventy five percent odds that there are around forty or more percent of the dwarves left alive. About eighty five percent odds that there’s at least a quarter of their population still alive.
Dang it. That’s still a significant chunk of people that are in danger, who may or may not know about the tunnel that was opened up. I mean, they have to have assumed a tunnel was opened up, but they might not have found its location. I wonder if I can get word to them somehow, so they can seal it off, while still continuing on my journey. Would Dippy be willing to go, or to send his animal friends with a letter? Could I contact the Sisters, and have them contact someone? Maybe the dwarves have already sealed it off, since we were in The Gap. It doesn’t sit right with me to not at least attempt to pass on the information though. I’ll try to put some thought into how to try to get a message out later. Before I die. Hopefully.
With this attempt at retrocognition, I can picture an approximation of the battle playing out. For example, the kobolds’ surprise at the first volley of firearms, taking down a dozen or more of their front line before they scatter for cover. The corpses strewn about, littering the main thoroughfare, their reptilian blood staining the impeccably carved stonework. The fear in their eyes, caught between the dragons and the dwarves, knowing they have to advance, or suffer certain death. That choice to begin terrorizing the civilians, working their way through the city towards the rear, if the civilians hadn’t been evacuated further within the dominion, to some abandoned ancient level within. The kobolds’ geokinetic creating cover as they advanced on the dwarves, and Paulette finding a vantage to take him out, while the Don and the Capos kept firing. The horror on all of their faces when they realized the massive range on the mighty breath weapons of the dragons. Dragons that had gotten in too close to ward off.
Why did I jump into paused time again? Right, I need dragonforces, and I was trying to determine if Astridus and Olashax would still be in The Gap, so I was putting together a timeline. Terrorzin wants something, is afraid of something, and is sending out dragons that haven’t been seen since ages long past. There has to be a reason dragons aren’t seen all over, that they aren’t constant news in every town we’ve been through. More than just their shapeshifting ability. Perhaps Astridus and Olashax are exiles? No, no they wouldn’t be. They were sent to make an example out of Don Derbrightmine. That means they have a home to return to, wherever the dragons live on Rayileklia. If they’re covetous of their hoards, their homes, and perhaps annoyed at having lost their kobold followers, they’ll likely return home to grouse, lick their wounds, and then perhaps seek out me and Teuila.
If only I were certain I could live that long. It’s one more step though in the plan. Keep adding to the plan, following through on the direction. Drop out of this paused thinkspace though, you’re giving yourself a headache. Oh, right. Still, if this retrocognition ability that I made up is remotely accurate at all, if I’m able to pick apart events that likely happened that I wasn’t even a part of, based on a shadow I saw in passing—. Could this be part of my power? Filling in the gaps, the absence of information? Huh. That—. That could be incredibly useful. Especially with the ability to pause, or nearly pause time. I would never have to wonder, “What the hell just happened!?” in a battle. My mental avatar strokes its chin whilst I ruminate on the possibilities to illuminate all actualities and elucidate myself in paused realities.