It would take the power of a god.
Yara returned, having had things explained to her by Marigold, who then spoke to her about how she felt about all of it and if there was anything more that could help.
She wasn’t crying anymore, she just felt guilty.
Fomoria hugged her as soon as she stepped through Marigold’s gate.
“It’s alright.”
“But-”
“I think I’ve come to realize something. It doesn’t matter, none of it does.”
“Fomoria-”
“Marigold, I forgive you. I don’t mean what I said as being depressed or nihilistic.
It doesn’t matter that we can’t have a child together, my life is already proof that it doesn’t matter if I share blood with anyone, family is family because they are family. If you want to be a mother, we can go to the orphanage and find a baby. It doesn’t matter if they are even human, but we can give that child a new life.”
“Yara, could Fomoria and I have the room to ourselves for a moment?”
She sniffled a little, but nodded and stepped out, sitting with her knees to her forehead in the hall.
Marigold led Fomoria to the couch.
“I know you must be upset, but-”
“After each failed relationship, I’ve tried to rush into new ones, I’ve kept trying to fill a hole in my life with a lover, with the idea that I must get married, have children, that those things will give me the normalcy that will keep my mind centered.
But I think that my focus on the belief that I should do those things has negatively effected my mental health. Whenever I’ve failed to make someone my wife, I’ve felt at fault, because now I’ve gone farther away from the line that I’m trying to stay on. My center should’ve always been myself, it shouldn’t have been what others consider to be normal.
I see that now, like I see for Brig, for Sepul, Xol, you. I-”
“I think that you are in a state of hyper awareness due to a breakdown caused by stress.
Of the three people you just mentioned, two are or were in a state of depression.
Brig, I honestly know almost nothing about, I can’t say why he never took his own life.
Sepul, I believe that he remained alive as a form of punishment, and atonement.
Xol… I think that the less I say about his past, the better.”
“Why don’t you use Others? Xol made a small mention once that you can’t, or won’t, but he never said anything more, because that was your secret, not his.”
“This isn’t about me, I’m trying to help you-”
“You are trying to apply a mindset to me that I reject. You see me as insane because I have deviated from what you believe is the right mind. I believe that you can’t use them because-”
“Fomoria, please, let’s get back on track.”
“No. You aren’t the only person who can look at others and judge their mental state.
You are afraid for me, you are worried that I’ve lost my mind, but I’ve attained some amount of clarity.”
“One of the worst things a patient can do is use what they’ve learned in therapy to try and analyze themselves or others. I have learned from both academic sources and from Xol, who had an understanding of psychology centuries ahead of anything on Aarde.
What you have is what I’ve said over the course of just a few years.
I am asking you to trust me, that I know how to help you, if you can let me, just like before.”
“And I am asking that you trust that you’ve helped me in the past, and that I am now introspective enough to see my actions from a partly unbiased view, that while I may not be you, I can keep myself in a sane state of mind, as I have done in the years that I’ve been out here.”
“I simply can’t trust you, you’ve seemed-”
“Then this is over. If I snap, and you believe that I will, then come back, force me to talk to you about what happened. If you cannot accept this, then I am telling you, not asking, that you leave my home.”
Marigold sighed.
“I can’t help someone who doesn’t want it. So, I hope, I really do hope, that you will come to me for help before you do something drastic.”
“Thank you for trying, but I don’t believe that I need help right now. I’m glad that we can at least come together on friendlier terms.”
“When the wedding eventually happens, I’d like an invitation.”
“Of course, Xol will have a plus one.”
She wryly laughed before she left.
Fomoria invited Yara back in, and the two of them laid there in bed.
“I’m sorry.”
“It isn’t your fault. I still love you, and that isn’t going to change because you can’t have a biological child with me. Maybe now it really is time to bring Darrath back. I know he is going to want to meet you, and you’ll love him.”
“Is it safe?”
“I am the fury and death of the gods, no man or beast shall dare cross me.”
“Is it safe?”
“Yes. I control the entire stripe, and the surrounding stripes, nobody is getting in or out without my people knowing. That and… well, I want it to be a surprise.”
“Aren’t you supposed to tell your wife everything?”
“I could, but I could also give you a gift and ask that you be patient with me.”
“It better be a very good gift.”
“I just need to find out how to make it. But, when the project is done, I believe I can brute force it.”
“You know that I love how much of a brute you can be, how you never give up, how you-”
“We can’t have children. For us to do so, I would need to figure out what is really wrong, since Xol was vague and I’m guessing Marigold didn’t say much to you either.”
“I mostly cried, I don’t remember what she really said.”
“I felt like crying too, but I didn’t. Not because I’m a stoic, or I’ve closed my emotions, but because there isn’t anything to do. I could end up wasting days, weeks, months, trying to change something that doesn’t need to be changed.
We can be parents, even if I can’t get you pregnant.”
“But-”
“I would be willing to allow one of us to be with somebody else, or even for us both to-”
“GODS, NO.”
“Is the problem that you want to have a child?”
“No, I just… I wish that I could, I hate that we can’t and we don’t know why.”
“I’m sorry to ask this now, but, for the next little while, not longer than two weeks, I want to just hunker down and finish my project. And I’m asking, I want to know, will you be ok?”
“I’ll be fine, just, stay with me today, and tomorrow, maybe the day after, then you can go.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
He kissed her forehead and the two of them held each other for the rest of the day.
Nine days passed without anyone seeing Fomoria, any emergencies had been handled by the Others, or by those who were given positions of power by him.
Then there was a warning posted the day prior to the event, just that the people needent worry, that something would be coming to fruition.
The ground shook and unsettling feelings filled the air, yet both faded within just a few minutes.
In the distance, the people could see the spire rising above the walls.
Fomoria stood atop the spire in an inhuman form.
His head was a flat disc, eyes lined it around the edges, and more atop of the head itself.
His body was insectoid, four double jointed legs made him stable even if the island were to begin to list.
He wanted to monitor everything as well as he could, and across his thin body was also various sensory organs, making him a living compass, depth meter, and gyroscope.
Fomoria had a balance above normal people, and could easily right himself, especially in this form, but he still wanted to make sure that the island would remain level so normal people wouldn’t become subtly nauseous by the small movements it would make.
“All mana gems are maintaining hover?”
“Acknowledged.”
“Stress levels?”
“Gem array formation is holding, stress is below expected levels.”
“Earth mana levels?”
“Gates below are operating as expected, the holes are generating extra mana.”
“Rise 10,000 more feet, then switch to air cushion magic, test hold. If altitude loss exceeds 1,000 feet, return to hover systems and place us back in the hole.”
“Acknowledged.”
There was a lurch as they switched to being upheld by solid air rather than hover letting them move upward.
“Can contact be formed with the other spire yet?”
“Mental threads are starting to form, but the connection is still too weak to send any signals.”
“Rise 5,000 feet more, test connections again.”
“We are being approached by an unknown large flying creature, avian in nature.”
“Raise defenses, keeping an eye on stress levels. If stress exceeds 50%, enter freefall, slowing with hover as much as needed to avoid damage to the gems.”
The tower turned black as the sigil activated, changing the mana that flowed through each gem situated in the dirt and bone.
“Have an Other attempt to make contact. If contact cannot be achieved, fire on target.”
The giant bird was mostly hot air, not that it wasn’t strong, but that it’s body was primarily filled with air sacs which allowed it to remain afloat with no mana expenditure and to release this hot air as a defensive or offensive measure.
The Other got near the creature, but it had no intent for peace, it saw the spire as an invader, it saw it as those from below thinking that they were allowed into the sky.
He escaped through a gate, then a panel on the spire opened and hundreds of hands were revealed.
Fomoria didn’t know exactly what the bird was, but he could make educated guesses about it.
Hundreds of firebolts came from the spire, then through gates, where they pierced the sacs of methane.
The people below saw a massive explosion and then a burning carcass fall from above the clouds.
But, their distance spared them from the stink that the creature left behind.
“Send two squads, golems, heavies. Have the first squad drop to check for life, if alive, have the second squad drop on the creature with gravity magic.”
“Acknowledged.”
With the confirmation of its death, the spire returned to a rising pattern.
The issue of the veil was twofold.
Firstly, it rose 80,000 feet over sea level and dozens of miles thick which of itself was already dozens of miles from the shore.
Secondly, it was a field of distortion. One couldn’t disrupt it, one couldn’t escape from it with spatial magic, the only option left after much testing was to bypass it.
The crossroads spread across the entire planet, but as Fomoria had found, his amulets didn’t have infinite range, and they weren’t truly instant.
His solution was to use smaller spires to act as relays and bounce the signals over the top of the veil where the magical effects had thinned out some, but also without actually going inside of the veil..
All in all, each was a small piece of earth, and a chunk of blood gem the size of a man.
Most of the relay’s magic was actually concerned with preventing anything that lived that high up from detecting and eating it.
Lir hadn’t yet made any statements towards him about if he was actually allowed to do this, so he would be going ahead at full force.
The spire rose higher and higher.
Past 30,000 feet, Fomoria was nervous about the ability of the spire to defend itself even though it was now cloaked by veils of its own and had a full station of Others on top of the spire itself being one of them and every inch of the place was soulsmithed.
Just as the depths of the ocean, just as the bowels of Aarde, there existed things whose power was rarely known to the surface world, whose extreme environments led to hyper specialization or whose strength let them rule despite their lack of it.
“Connection?”
“We are starting to receive information from the other side.”
“Start delay tests.”
They waited for long enough that Fomoria wanted to just use a void gate and check on the spire in the NLZ, but after almost a minute, they received their reply.
“Not good enough.”
“We are unlikely to be able to change this. We already know that there is a very small delay over a distance, and we are going very far, but also over the veil.”
“Assign three Others to work on it, but consider it low priority and they may be reassigned if needed.”
With these words, the spire retracted its own eyes and ears, and Fomoria jumped to the base of it while reverting to a human form.
Fomoria stood there on the edge of the floating island, and he just stared for a while.
Monsters he had never seen up close, things that flit and fluttered with wings and mechanisms he had never seen.
The air mana was so thick here that there was nothing which wasn’t at least partly wind aligned.
Through the parting clouds, a pod of whales came towards the spire, but Fomoria told him that they meant no harm.
They circled around the island, their eyes, six in total, two forward, two up, two down, were each as tall as Fomoria was.
They sang their songs, but said no words.
Through the spells, they knew that he was there, they stared directly at him.
The whales seemed more curious than anything, and finally they flew away once they decided that he wasn’t a threat.
Once they were gone into the sea of clouds again, he decided to bring Yara up.
She looked over the edge, Kor seemed so tiny from 30,000 feet.
But more than that, she wanted to step back.
“It’s beautiful up here. What’s the point of this? Sorry, I mean-”
“I know what you mean. You want to know what this is all about?”
“That’s what I meant.”
“I am going to connect the world, and these spires will do so.
They are to be watchtowers, communication posts, fortresses, bombardment platforms.
A grid of spires will be around the world, I will let nothing escape my sight.
I will- Hold on, my Other tells me that Harlan needs to see me. You should come.”
“Why? I’m not a healer or-”
“It’s Liat.”
They arrived without delay, and made their way past the others in the house.
Personal guards of some of the royals blocked his path.
“HAL-”
Fomoria let out a mental attack that brought them to the ground, kicking them hard out of his way as he passed.
It would’ve taken moments to clear up the situation, and to say that they have no authority here as guests to arrest Fomoria no matter how much they blustered.
But he hurt these men regardless.
The royal guards didn’t lift a finger to help their lower ranked companions, who they saw as little better than butlers with swords.
Harlan was with one of the royal guards, he looked a bit scraggly in the face because he hadn’t had time to groom himself, but otherwise fine if one discounted the wheelchair.
“What happened?”
“I can’t say here, but I will explain in the future. Avoid crippling any of the guards here, I am sheltering the royals, and I would rather they not be harmed on my property.”
“Those men are fine, they’ll recover in a few days.”
As Fomoria slightly calmed, he felt the wrongness in Harlan.
“You’ve lost your empathy?”
“Temporarily. What happened caused my connection to Aarde to be cut, and-”
“Is that what happened to Liat?”
“Among the others, yes, she suffered worse than I did however.”
“I shouldn’t waste time talking, Yara and I should see her immediately.”
“Right.”
Harlan couldn’t feel the joy that Fomoria felt, even had he, it would’ve made no difference.
Liat was bone thin; golems surrounded her, protecting and nursing.
Fomoria let Yara go ahead of him, but she stopped at the edge of the bed, afraid of hurting her with the lightest contact.
The sisters both began to cry; Liat reached for Yara.
As they embraced one another, words were spoken in a tone and distortion through tears that rendered them unintelligible to him, yet they seemed to understand one another.
Fomoria simply stood to the side, he would just get in the way.
----------------------------------------
The gem found flesh, freshly killed.
“Who are you?”
“Come on, don’t you recognize me? I’d use an illusion to change my face to one you’d know, but, that is something you are going to solve for me.”
“I don’t-”
“I bet Harlan would’ve got it immediately.”
The mention of him drove Magruder to attempt to strike down his savior, but yet no magic came to him.
“The bracelets won’t let you do anything silly.”
Those, those he recognized.
“My benefactor?”
“The one and only. Now, since you’ve pissed the kid off, it is very good that your original is dead.
It’s a bit disgusting how much things have changed. I used to be able to slip in and out of every city in the kingdom and beyond, I have spilled more saintly blood than any other man in my position outside of Ix himself.
But that’s why I love him so.”
Nulson laughed with his hand over his heart.
“Who are you?”
“Oh come now, you… oh, actually, you wouldn’t know, would you? My name is Nulson, and we are going to become very well acquainted over these next few weeks.”
He held his hand out for a shake, but once he had Magruder in his grasp, he broke his wrist.
“And that’s for trying to kill me. Now we can actually begin. Though, I would be a little disappointed if you hadn’t tried.”