I didn't end up sitting in that basement cavern the whole time I was telling Ehn my story, as it turned out. Instead, he said a few words to the workers about keeping up their digging and to make sure they continued to reinforce the ceiling before creating a portal for us to go through. I also left my invisible escort behind, giving them a cheerful wave. That prompted another soft snicker from the figure before I walked through the portal and found myself on the balcony of a beautiful cottage. One that clearly wasn't anywhere near that lumber camp, considering the mountain view.
Before I could say anything, Ehn walked to the edge of the balcony and looked out over the snow-covered forest below. “Don't worry,” he assured me, “we'll go back and pick up your companions soon. I've already sent the Revenant a message amounting to such. This was a nice chance to speak in private. And-- hm.” He frowned, looking back to me with a thoughtful expression. “I suppose this may be another instance of me taking you somewhere else without forewarning. Hardly up to the level of our time trip, and yet upon reflection… perhaps you would have preferred a warning about how far the portal would take you. Though, to be entirely fair, there is nothing of note preventing you from transporting yourself right back there, in this case.”
Unable to fully resist the urge to roll my eyes, I muttered, “Oh good, you didn’t take us hundreds of years back through time without any warning again. I was wondering about that. And hey, you worked out the problem on your own. Better late than never.” I kept my voice light with that bit, giving Ehn a look that would hopefully let him know I was kidding… mostly.
Before doing anything else, I turned to look out at the mountains again and waited for a moment. Sure enough, it wasn't long before I heard the expected message. Flick, Percy sent through a partial-recall (I was the last person she had possessed before we did all this, after all), do you need any help? Is everything okay over there?
I’m good, I replied easily. At least for now. But just in case, why don’t you and Story work out where we are and whether we need to bring the ship over or not. My distance power says we’re about five thousand, four hundred miles east from Laramie Falls, but who knows if he messed with that somehow. I’ll see if I can get some direct answers from the man himself. Just be ready to double-check in case he lies about it. I don’t really expect him to, or to block me from teleporting, but better safe than sorry. Thanks!
With that done, while Story and Percy worked in the background of my mind to plan out details of what we might do if this all went sideways after all, I focused on Ehn once more, looking over my shoulder at him. “Anyway, yeah, I can send myself back there if I want. But just because someone is capable of driving their own car is no reason not to tell them where yours is taking them. Or… something. The analogy falls apart a bit when everything’s basically instantaneous. That said, my annoyance at being sent into the past would have been tempered somewhat by the ability to send myself back on my own, yeah. The main problem was less taking me somewhere--or somewhen without warning, and more the fact that you did so in a way that made me dependent on you to ever get back to when I want to be. It’s like if a girl agrees to go on a date with you, and you’re supposed to drive to the restaurant but you take her to some secluded area miles away from any civilization. You might think you’re being romantic, but all you did was make her dependent on you to get back home. You took her away from any person who might be able to help if things happen to go wrong. No matter what your intentions might be, that’s enough to make someone nervous. But in this case, it’s more like we both have cars out in the middle of nowhere. I can drive away if I want to. So not telling me is just somewhat rude, rather than super-intimidating.”
Shaking that off, I turned back to the railing and looked down. “Do I even want to ask where exactly we are? I don’t recognize these mountains.”
“Ah, the Swiss Alps,” Ehn replied before smiling very faintly at my double-take. “After spending the majority of my time over so many centuries essentially in one place, I find myself preferring to witness as many great sights as possible. And this is certainly one of them. It’s a fine reminder of why the work we do is so important.” He seemed to trail off wistfully there for a moment before turning to look at me once more. “Ahem, in any case, you've been through quite a lot over these past few months, it seems.”
“You could say that,” I agreed, before taking a seat there on the edge of the railing overlooking those beautiful mountains. Over the next hour or so, I explained everything that had happened since I had last seen him. He listened silently for the most part, only speaking up to ask a clarifying question now and then. If he was very surprised by most of the news, he didn't show it. Not for awhile, at least. Then again, I was pretty sure the man had an excellent poker face, so maybe him not showing much of a reaction wasn’t the greatest tell. When I pointedly asked if he was the one who had directed Fahsteth my way, he acknowledged as such with a simple nod before informing me that I had done an excellent job dealing with that situation. Somehow, I stopped myself from having too overt of a reaction to that. I didn’t even try to hit him or anything. Though I did tell him, in no uncertain terms, that a warning would have been nice. Especially when it came to the fact that one of the people I happened to care about at the village had been put in danger by those machinations.
The biggest sign of his actual surprise came when I told him about the whole Ankou thing. When I explained what the tower was, and what was in it, he actually sat down. His expression didn't change that much, but just the fact that he had to sit was the greatest indication I had that it hadn't been an actual part of his plan. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the part where I was split up and sent to serve as a guide to all of them and their victims throughout their own history, he had schooled himself, so I didn't have the luxury of seeing his mouth fall open in surprise. Which kind of sucked. Maybe I should have started with that.
He did, however, have a reaction when I explained the Fae thing. Sitting up a little, he regarded me intently before extending one hand toward mine while asking, “May I?”
Yeah, I had figured he'd want to investigate that. There had been a little bit of worry between me and the others that he might react badly to the idea that I was no longer exactly one hundred percent human. We didn't know if he drew that sort of distinction. He was fine with Heretics, obviously, but maybe human-adjacent Fae were too different. Either way, it wasn't as though I would have been able to hide it from him for long, most likely. So, the best bet was to confront it head-on and get all that over with.
The man took my hand gently and examined it. I tried not to tense up too much, but it was difficult considering the stakes we were dealing with. He seemed to stare directly into my palm for an extended time, which gave me the strangest feeling like he was going to read my fortune. It was hard not to snicker in that moment, picturing Ehn in a stereotypical costume for that, complete with lots of beads and the hair bandana.
Oh come on, laugh at him! That was Story, speaking up with obvious amusement. He deserves to be laughed at once in awhile. And if he can’t take that sort of thing, he doesn’t deserve to be in charge of an Orange Julius, let alone the entire universe. Only leaders who can accept being laughed at now and then are worthy of the title.
We don’t have much in the way of options when it comes to anyone who could challenge him for the position, I pointed out. Not right now, anyway. We need to play nice and take it easy. I’d rather be allies with him than enemies. Whether we can be friends or not may be up in the air, but let’s at least try to stay on the same side. We all want to stop the Fomorians. Whatever comes after that--we can deal with it then.
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Before Story could respond to that, Ehn released my hand. “Well, that's certainly a bit of a change. But, I don't believe it's a negative one. You are still yourself, as far as I can tell. You are Felicity Chambers. Perhaps a bit upgraded in various ways, and not the same as you once were, but yourself nonetheless. I had worried that you might be someone else, a creation of these Ankou, with her memories simply implanted into a facsimile body to serve as their version of a replacement. But as far as I can tell, that is not the case.”
Boy, wouldn't that have been a surprise? To find out that I wasn't even who I thought I was, but actually some other being, like an Ankou-created golem with Felicity Chambers’ memories plugged into me? Eesh, now I wasn't even sure what to think about that idea. It made me shudder a bit inwardly. Of course I was me. I had to be me. But in the end, what was a person other than their memories? If I had been a creation of the Ankou with the original Felicity’s memories and personality implanted into it, was that… would it be that different from--what would have happened to--oh. Yeah, I didn’t want to think about it anymore. Just that little bit was making my head hurt. I had enough problems and drama without inviting brand new hypothetical ones.
“Glad to know I’m still me,” I managed just a bit weakly. “Just… a lot of different me’s.”
That made Ehn blink uncertainly, raising one eyebrow while clearly waiting for me to clarify what I meant by that. So, I took a breath before launching into that part of the explanation. This one took even longer than the whole Fae-Ankou thing had, especially since this time Ehn definitely asked more questions. I was pretty sure he was starting to wonder if I was making things up once I explained about how I had several hundred different versions of me in my head, all hanging out within a pseudo-Reaper Archive. Or Ankou Archive, as the case was. He wanted to know everything about it, how many different versions of me there were, how independent they seemed, if I thought they might be some sort of Ankou/Reaper implant, whether I could retain control if they wanted to take it, and so on and so forth. I’d never seen him so intent and focused before. This was a whole different level than it had been when he examined me a minute earlier to make sure I was still myself. Which made me wonder how intense this would have been if he hadn’t already done that at this point.
After a few minutes of that, I let Story take over, shifting positions with her in our head so she could speak for herself. Meanwhile, I had a quick discussion with Percy. They had tracked our exact location by that point, using a mix of the distance I’d given them along with a little magical tracer I kept on me to narrow it down to an exact location. I wasn’t sure if Ehn hadn’t noticed it, or if he politely ignored it. Whatever the case, they knew where we were, and he hadn’t been lying about the whole Swiss Alps thing. Percy was ready to jump the Cryptseeker over here to back me up the second I needed her. But for now, I told her to hold off and let this play out.
Meanwhile, Story was answering a barrage of even more intense questions, though Ehn seemed to visibly restrain himself after a moment, realizing on his own that he was being too demanding. He took a deep, audible breath before slowing down his barrage of questions. Carefully and with a clear attempt to take it a little easier on both of us, the man talked to Story directly, asking her all sorts of things about what she remembered, how far back her memories went, if she retained everything about my life-- or our life from all the way into childhood, and so on. He wanted to know every possible detail. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to trip her up, point out a thing she might remember differently than I did, or if he was just that fascinated by the whole concept.
Either way, he eventually wanted to speak with a few of the others. And, in the process, get a look at how I shifted them around. Not that there was much to see, since I simply meditated silently without any outward effect, as far as I knew. But he still wanted to see it, so I closed my eyes and sat there for a minute, sending Story back before bringing in Extra. She had quickly volunteered as soon as Story let the others know about what was going on. Which honestly made me a little nervous about what she might end up saying, but I was sure she would restrain herself.
So, naturally, the first thing Extra said once she took over was an immediate and very undiplomatic, “So what the hell is the deal with that lumbercamp back there, and what’re you having those people dig out that underground chamber for? We've done basically nothing but answer your questions ever since we got here, I think it's about time you answered one or two. I mean, you already sent us into that tower without even knowing what it really was. You didn't realize there was a whole army of potentially evil Reaper locked up inside it. Reapers we could have accidentally released to threaten the whole universe, just because you didn’t know what exactly you were sending us to go poke. So I think it's safe to say you aren't quite as infallible as you might want people to think.” She made our eyes give him a pointed look. “Yeah, it worked out in the end, but that was because of us, not you.”
There was a brief moment of silence then, before Ehn offered a faint smile of what seemed like genuine amusement and maybe a little self-recrimination. “A fair point. I had faith that you would handle the situation there, but I do admit that the… extent of the potential problem was beyond what I was expecting. Apologies for that. I do… need to be a little more forthcoming with what I expect, and what I might be sending you into. I shall do my best to remember such in the future.”
He turned to look out at the mountains for a moment then, before continuing. “As for the cavern you saw, the simple answer is that I wish to… store some important items there, in a place that will remain undisturbed and unfound all the way into the present. That sort of thing is easier than attempting to carry everything through time with us every time we make a jump, particularly as… well, the point is, they will stay there, shielded from any detection, awaiting our return to the present, where I will simply take them back.”
I noticed that he hadn't actually told us exactly what sort of things he was going to keep there, but at least it was some sort of answer. Then Ehn started to ask Extra some things. It was basically the same sort of stuff he had been asking Story, obviously pushing to see just how much of… well, me she actually was. Obviously, Extra was less enthusiastic about playing along, but she gave him enough answers to satisfy the man.
We did the same thing with a couple others, until I finally called a stop to the whole thing once Fathom had gone through it. “They’re me,” I announced flatly. “They’re all versions of me. They were split off and sent through--okay we’re not sure if they were actually sent through time or if everyone’s memories were just adjusted to make it seem like they were, but it’s basically the same result for all intents and purposes. The point is, I have a whole island full of other me’s, and those are just the ones I have direct access to. It’s… complicated. I’m an Ankou-Fae, not a Heretic. And now I have a whole Reaper ship to use as a home base for my school.”
With that, I jumped into that whole explanation of my plan. I told Ehn about how I was going to build a school for Necromancers, a secret one that no one else would know about, where we could train to become strong enough to actually help against the Fomorians. Obviously it would need to stay under the radar, to avoid any Seosten or Boscher interference. To say nothing of how Fossor would react. Something told me he wasn’t going to jump in and volunteer to be a teacher.
Ehn took it all in, asking questions about just how the tower worked, how it ended up listening to me, how it could shapeshift, and all the rest. In the end, he sat back in his seat, regarding me in silence for a few long seconds. “Felicity Chambers,” he finally announced, “I had thought I might have put too much pressure on you. But I must say, you seem to have completely exceeded my expectations. Creating an army of Necromancers rather than attempting to shoulder the entire burden yourself… quite the ambitious plan. I look forward to seeing how that goes. And I would love to see this school itself, if you don’t mind?”
“Sure,” I replied, straightening up before holding out a hand to him. It was my turn to jump him somewhere. “And while we’re at it, I’ll tell you about how I punched Ruthers in the nose and saved Laramie Falls again.”
Okay, that time I was rewarded with a surprised double-take. And yes, it was definitely worth the wait.