Arkk lightly tapped the tips of his fingers against the crystal ball, readjusting its perspective.
From certain angles, at certain times of day when the light hit just right, he could almost see through the haze of mist that covered the Evestani army. It wasn’t clear. The effect worked only for a few minutes before the sun’s position changed too much. But it gave him a glimpse into the army’s actions.
Usually, one of the scrying teams was in charge of the brief period of observation. They would note down the position of the army, any significant changes from the day before, and whether or not it looked like the army was ready to move. Since arriving at Woodly Rhymes, they hadn’t done much of anything. Which was alarming in its own special way.
But now…
“See?” Lexa bounced up, jabbing her finger at the crystal ball. “There it is!”
Arkk squinted, frowning.
The area the crystal ball was focused on was a short distance outside Woodly Rhymes Burg, beyond the walls. Roughly where the fields of crops should have been. The fog protecting Evestani from scrying was thinner that far away, letting him see…
Nothing. There weren’t any soldiers, no encampment. Not even a pile of supplies thrown under a tarp.
Arkk raised a questioning eyebrow in Lexa’s direction. “Is this some kind of gremlin thing I’m too human to perceive?”
Said gremlin rolled her eyes, huffing indignantly. “Look at the way the fog is moving. It is flowing, right? But it isn’t flowing here,” she said, jabbing her finger at the crystal ball again. “It is flowing around it.”
Now that she said it, the fog did look like it was avoiding a large section of the fields. “We know the Eternal Empire uses a different method of hiding their stuff,” Arkk said, thinking back to the large aeronautical ship that they had discovered. “Is it something of theirs?”
“Something, yeah,” Lexa grumbled, running her fingers through her red hair. “I think they’re still building it.”
“While it is invisible?”
“They obviously have a way to see it. I couldn’t, not even when I got close, but people were moving around without trouble, carrying loads in hand carts and on their backs. Lots of…” She paused with a frown, shuddered, then shook her head. “They had egg things. Big round eggs, all slimy and red. Big enough to fit me inside. They didn’t give me a good feeling.”
“Uh… huh…”
“At a certain point, they just vanished. I didn’t want to accidentally bump into someone and reveal myself, so I didn’t thoroughly investigate, but… This is bad, right?”
“Is it? We already knew they had one of those things. If this is another airship they’re building… with eggs… that’s just one more. I already had plans for dealing with them—”
“It isn’t just the one.” Lexa swatted Arkk’s hand away from the crystal ball, taking control for herself. The viewpoint shuddered and jerked, giving Arkk a brief feeling of vertigo before Lexa stabilized it. She zoomed the view across the land, pausing a short distance away from the construction project.
Now that he knew what to look for, Arkk immediately spotted the odd curling of the fog as it traveled over something invisible. This one was even larger than the last. Either it was more complete or it was a different design. Arkk didn’t get a chance to try to compare the two before Lexa readjusted the view.
There was another one.
And another one.
And one more.
Even that wasn’t the end. Arkk counted up nine different construction spots before the sun’s angle made the misty fog glare too harshly against the crystal ball. She still tried to show off one more, but if there were signs of the curling fog, they were too faint to see.
With a frustrated grumble, Lexa pulled her hand off the crystal ball.
“How many?” Arkk asked.
“The report I found in the central camp said fifteen, but I was only able to find twelve out there being worked on. I don’t know where the other three are. Maybe they finished already. Maybe they haven’t started them.”
Arkk pursed his lips. Fifteen was a fair few more than the two or three he had been expecting. Especially when his grand plan for getting rid of them was basically to throw Priscilla at them and hope for the best with some siege magic for backup. Maybe give her a few alchemical bombs to drop on them in case her ice wasn’t enough. But fifteen? Perhaps in addition to the few Arkk knew they had…
“Get the crystal ball back to the scrying team,” Arkk said, handing it over.
“Where are you going?”
“Clearly, I need to do some digging and figure out what these things are. Maybe see if I can’t find weaknesses.”
Crystal ball held aloft in one hand, Lexa planted the other on her hip. “And just how do you plan on doing that?”
“I have my ways,” Arkk said, evasively. He did a quick mental check, making sure the Vezta was here at Elmshadow and not in Fortress Al-Mir.
“Need me to sneak in again?”
“No! No, thank you, Lexa.”
“But—”
“I appreciate you going above and beyond,” Arkk said, leaning down to be more on her level. “I really do. But I would rather you stay safe. You can’t take vengeance on the avatar if you get caught and killed before.”
Lexa scrunched up her face. She wasn’t happy. But Arkk didn’t particularly care if she was happy or not. He wasn’t going to let her get herself killed out of some need to avenge those kids the avatar had killed. It wasn’t her fault they had died. She had done her best. All the blame was at the feet of the avatar.
“I’ll be back soon. Keep watch on them—from a distance—in accordance with the regular shifts I’ve assigned. We’ll figure out what to do when I’ve returned.”
“But—”
“Lexa. I understand. I really do. But I will assign someone else to observation if I think you can’t handle it.”
“I can handle anything.”
“Good,” Arkk said, leaning back. “Then handle simple scouting and nothing more. You did good, even if you disobeyed orders. So today, get some rest. I can have Ivan take your place today.”
“Ivan? The slime? Can it even move fast enough to run away if something happens?”
“Ivan can sink into the ground and hide.”
“Into the ground… Where did you even find that thing?”
Arkk opened his mouth, but hesitated. “I’m… not sure. I think he showed up around the time Cray did? The dryad.”
“And where did you find her?”
“Plenty of people have come to me wanting to help fight off the invaders. I have hardly kept track of where they all have come from. Ilya has done plenty of hiring without my knowing and—”
“Yes, but a dryad and an ooze? Not exactly common demihumans. Oozes are more often considered monsters—or pests—than beings too.”
“Now, don’t be rude. Ivan has been… helpful.”
Lexa raised an eyebrow. “With what?”
“Moving around, spying on things without being noticed. How do you think we kept such close track of our efforts against Evestani during their march across Mystakeen?”
“Crystal ball,” Lexa said, hefting the ball.
“In part, but there were plenty of operations that took place while Evestani was using their fog magics.” Arkk smiled at the frown Lexa gave him. “Relax. Ivan can handle it tonight. I need to go though.” He started to turn away but paused. At this point, he worried she would run off. If he gave her another assignment to busy herself with… “If you want a job to do that would help me greatly…”
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“Yes?”
“Find Vezta and keep an eye on her. It is okay if she notices you—in fact, probably better to just approach her openly—just keep her here. Don’t let her come to Fortress Al-Mir. Or, if you can’t come up with an excuse why she should stay, pull on the link to give me a warning.”
Lexa adopted a look of genuine surprise. “Spy on Vezta? Why?” she asked, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I thought you trusted her more than anyone else… except the elf.”
“I do,” Arkk insisted. “It’s just… I don’t imagine she would be very happy to learn what I’m going to be doing in the next little while.”
“And what, exactly, is that?”
Arkk just shrugged, smiling again. This time, his smile was wan and flat. “The less people who know, the better. Sorry. I can’t say more.”
Lexa crossed her arms, keeping the crystal ball upright, as she frowned heavily. “Maybe I should be spying on you.”
“You could try, but it might be hard for you to follow me.”
“And why is—”
Arkk moved himself out of the meeting room, reappearing straight in the ritual room. He stepped on the teleportation ritual circle and, a few hops later, stepped out inside Fortress Al-Mir. Another ritual circle-less movement and he was inside the temple. A hefty lock engaged as soon as he was inside, ensuring nobody would be able to disturb him.
Not that very many people came by the temple. Only Vezta on occasion when she wanted to kneel in front of Xel’atriss, Lock and Key’s statue. And Priscilla had been stopping by recently as well. Even though she was upset the Permafrost’s statue was that of a dragon, she still came by to pay her respects.
Or beg forgiveness. Arkk had deliberately avoided looking in on her while she was present.
Regardless, Arkk was alone for the time being. He pulled a chair from his office, planting it in front of one of the statues. After a moment of thought, he went ahead and pulled his whole desk over.
Taking a seat at the desk, Arkk opened a drawer and rummaged through. He pulled out a notebook, then a pen and inkwell. On the underside of one of the drawers, there was a small compartment. John the carpenter had helped him cobble it together. It lacked any way of accessing it normally, at least without destroying part of the desk or drawer. Being his property, he could reach in and teleport items to and from the compartment just as he could teleport the entire desk.
Security wasn’t the most important thing. If it was, he would have simply sealed off one of the myriad chambers in Fortress Al-Mir.
Arkk teleported a pair of silver candlesticks and white candles from the compartment. He set them atop the desk on either corner furthest from his chair. After muttering the incantation for a small fire spell, a bright orange flame ignited just above his fingertips. Something strange happened when he brought the flame close to the candle wicks.
The flame jumped to the wick. Rather than burn the usual orange, a few little sparks jumped from the candle before the flame turned a silvery white. Arkk lit the other candle in the same manner, flicked his hand back and forth to extinguish the flame spell, then leaned back in his seat with his hands folded neatly on the desk.
And he waited, staring up at the statue of the Holy Light.
Vezta would probably be… unhappy were she to find out that he had been in contact with the avatar of one of the traitor gods. He didn’t exactly like hiding it from her. He had a feeling there would be a price to pay when she inevitably found out. Yelling and broken trust at the least.
If she knew about it now, she would try to stop him. Probably not physically, but she could be convincing when she wanted to be. Arkk had already run over possibilities in his head of this being a trap or intentionally lead him to act in certain ways. But he felt it was important to explore every avenue he had available to him.
Whatever information he got, he could bring up in a meeting as having come from one of his sources. Al-Mir had grown large enough that none of his advisors knew everything that was going on and that included Vezta. There was always someone like Lexa or Edvin out on miscellaneous orders that the others didn’t know about. So getting advice on information without tainting that advice by revealing the actual source of the information allowed him the highest degree of flexibility.
Arkk drummed his fingers on his desk, watching as the candles burned down.
If he got any information at all.
The candles were as long as his arm but burned surprisingly quickly. It had been five minutes and they were already half gone. He had been told that, if he ever wished to speak again, he simply needed to burn the specially prepared candles in front of the statue. Now, however, he was wondering if he had done something wrong.
Did the candles need to be on the ground? Arrayed in a particular way? Closer to the statue?
Just as Arkk was about to stand and rearrange the candlesticks, the statue of the Holy Light shifted from the heroic, upward-facing pose to looking directly at Arkk. The suddenness of it made him jump in place.
A light, feminine laughter came from the masculine statue. It didn’t move when it laughed, giving it an uncanny air. Nor did it move when it started to speak. “Well, well, well. I wasn’t sure if you would try to contact me again. Good day, Mister Arkk.”
Arkk pressed his lips together, taking a moment to settle himself back in his seat. “Avatar.”
“Lyra, please.”
“Lyra,” Arkk said with a small frown. It wouldn’t be good to upset this person. “I was wondering if you were going to respond at all.”
“Now, now. I do have other matters to attend to. You are quite lucky you caught me now. I have a task to see to in a few minutes.” The statue shifted, moving to a new position without going through the intervening motions. It leaned back, arms crossed, almost like it was resting against a wall. Except, on the pedestal, there was just empty space at its back. “Did you consider more what we spoke of last time?”
“I considered it, yes.”
“And?”
“Still undecided.”
A disappointed frown appeared on the statue’s face. “Pity.”
For all that the Holy Light’s avatar appeared to have a disagreement and dispute with the other two traitor gods—or at least their avatars—Arkk could not find a good reason to allow her physical access into his temple chamber or access to operational portals. Perhaps he was paranoid, but Vezta had said that the temple room could act as a direct link to the gods. He had seen some of that for himself—mostly in the form of the Laughing Prince giving him a keystone that linked to the Necropolis—and had no reason to doubt its ability.
So giving an avatar of a potentially hostile god direct access to that god… Not a good idea.
“But,” Arkk said, continuing. “I did have a few questions that I thought you might be able to answer. Ones that might help me make my decision.”
“Oh? And what benefit is there for me in answering your questions?” The statue’s eyebrow moved upward, an odd effect given that the eyebrow was made from shimmering light. “You won’t even agree to a simple request of mine.”
“Aside from helping clarify a few things for me? Perhaps you should view it as building a rapport? A way to help convince me of your intentions.”
The statue sighed. Which, coming from the majestic form of the Holy Light, seemed somehow… mundane. A demystification of the godly being, even if he knew he was only speaking with the avatar of the god. “I suppose educating others at any cost is within my dominion as avatar of the god of knowledge and enlightenment. I should be a little more lighthearted. Perhaps you might be willing to perform another task for me instead? Something of lesser consequence?”
Arkk shifted in his seat. “Perhaps. I would have to know what it is first.”
“And I would need to know what you wish to ask. So let us dispense with the bartering and get straight with the questions, shall we?”
Nodding his head, Arkk pulled a map from his desk of the area around Elmshadow. “The Eternal Empire is building something. A lot of somethings. They are invisible to both the naked eye and scrying, though their presence can be seen using the scrying-obscuring fog that Evestani utilizes. Large red egg-like objects have been seen moving to the construction site. I was wondering if you knew anything about that.”
“Oh? She is doing that, is she?”
“You know of it?”
The statue closed its eyes, cutting off a portion of light in the room. “You are aware of the three gods remaining after the Calamity.”
“I am,” Arkk said.
“In the first years, we worked together to maintain order throughout the land. We were going to end wars, bring peace, yadda-yadda. I’m sure you can guess at our idealism.” The eyes opened again, narrowing. “But there were disagreements regarding the whys and wherefores. Said disagreements eventually devolved into conflicts. Conflicts between avatars are nothing to be scoffed at. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that we reshaped the world in as many definitions as you could come up with for the word.”
“You mentioned that when we last spoke. The Golden Order took particular offense to you and started a bunch of wars.” That much was obviously the truth. Arkk had done his best to verify what the avatar had told him during their previous meeting. It wasn’t hard to find evidence of animosity between the Golden Order and the Abbey of the Light dating back centuries.
“The only reason evidence of the Light still exists is thanks to the Almighty Glory and her. The Eternal Empress. I doubt she even remembers her own name, but she has pride. And her pride would not allow our alliance to come apart so easily. With both myself and the Greedy Gold in shambles from our wars, we couldn’t exactly say no to the Eternal Empress and her proposed truce. The actual truce is long and dreadfully boring, but boiling away the flowery language, all disagreements were to be conducted without direct avatar intervention. No powers of gods nor anything derived from them were to engage in any amount of conflict.
“Naturally, we both ignored it when we thought we could get away with it,” the avatar said with a laugh. “It was fairly simple for me. A god of knowledge isn’t prone to conflict in the first place. I could easily whisper words of prophecy into the right ears, steering things in the ways they needed to go. And with only us three signing the treaty, I was free to seek out those like your dear Agnete, utilizing their power to maintain safety both within and without my borders.”
The statue flickered forward, looming over Arkk’s desk. “You are not protected by that truce.”
Arkk flinched back at the sudden position of the statue. It hadn’t left the pedestal. It couldn’t, as far as he could tell. But that didn’t stop it from being utterly imposing. Still, he kept his calm. “That much is obvious enough. The Golden Order’s avatar and I have directly fought one another on multiple occasions.”
“Yes, but now it seems as if the Almighty Glory has decided to act as well. The Almighty Glory theoretically rules over the realms of pride, might, power, and war—I’m not sure of the accuracy of that, and those red eggs are a large reason why I doubt it. Nevertheless, the ancient Empress is slow to act but once she moves… she might be something akin to an unstoppable force. But don’t take her for a blunt hammer, swinging wildly. She has as much guile as she does strength.
“If the Eternal Empire is constructing those war machines that were sealed away following the truce, you had best prepare yourself well.”
“That’s what I’ve come to you for,” Arkk said. “How do I prepare? What are they? Capabilities, limitations, weaknesses?”
The statue hummed, shifting back to a neutral stance. “Mister Arkk. I shall ask one more time… I would like for you to return Purifier Agnete to me.”
“Out of the question,” Arkk said instantly. Even if Agnete wasn’t trapped in another plane, he would have answered the same.
“Then, I am afraid we have nothing else to discuss today. Good day, Mister Arkk.”
“Wait!” Arkk said.
The statue of the Holy Light shifted back to its usual heroic pose, staring up and over the temple room. It didn’t move again, not even after the candles burned completely out.