The cabin of the craft was filled with the pale cyan haze of burning dream-ether candles. One of the oculomancers consumed the ether to maintain the noise-blocking weave. Fiona insisted that the sound of the propellers was extremely painful, and from the size of the things, Kiera did not doubt that was the case. They were huge, bigger than the craft itself, mounted on pylons at the very end of the craft's stubby wings.

Kiera rested her head against the glass window, or porthole as the crew called it, and watched the dark horizon vanish beyond the yellow-red rock of Spire Titania. She felt the whole craft begin to tilt, until she fell back into her seat, pressed against the leather. Claire leaned over and hugged her.

"I have mistreated you," Kiera said. The thought was in her heart, and she was forced to say it aloud.

Claire hugged her tighter, but said nothing.

"I'm happy that Fiona asked me to teach you. I'm happy that you've been my companion and my little sister."

The vertical flight was very long. Fiona had carried her to the top of Spire Erika in a fighter jet, and the trip had been very fast. The tilt-rotor was slow by comparison, and the seventy-thousand foot ascent to the summit took a long time. They passed into the shadow of the spire, and the pale milk skin of ice grew thinner and thinner as they approached the apex. The nose began to droop, and Kiera felt the pressure of the seat cushions slowly release. Outside the window, the escarpment dropped away to reveal a fractured yellow-red disk.

"It's times like these that I feel so small," Kiera said. "I wonder why I was born in this moment. I am afraid."

"I have always been afraid," Claire said. "Ever since I was taken from that cavern and sent to live in the palace. Nothing seems real."

"Remembrancer," one of the oculomancers said.

It was the highest-ranking oculomancer from among those living in the Lake Rath Temple, a graying woman clad in turquoise robes. She was strapped into the seat directly opposite to Kiera, and had spent most of the flight upside-down, supported only by her harness. Kiera was grateful that she was given her own choice of seat in the craft.

"I have words, if it pleases you," the oculomancer continued.

"It does please me," Kiera said.

"Those who kill others kill themselves."

Kiera nodded.

"Some are blessed to be born into times of peace. Others are born into an age of trouble, and in such a time one is faced with a choice. You may kill, and in so doing kill yourself, or you may choose not to kill, and in so doing suffer a far worse fate."

"And what fate is that?" Kiera asked.

"To be slowly replaced," the oculomancer said. "To be subjugated. To have the whole of your existence accounted for, every road a trap, every word a crime. I was born into this place, great Remembrancer, and I have lived a life under the iron grip of deception. An entire civilization devoted to the sole task of generating lies to describe the most mundane of observations."

Kiera froze. Her jaw was locked. She could not speak.

"Be brave, great Remembrancer. In moments of fear, please remember us. You have the chance to heal our minds and redeem our souls."

"I promise I will remember," Kiera said.

The entire upper surface of Spire Titania was a series of deep winding chasms and towering monoliths. As the craft approached the center, the pylons on the wings began to tilt upright. The sound of the collective pitch began to penetrate the wind barrier, a chest-pounding, whirring beat. Slowly the top of a nearby monolith rose to meet them. Then they stopped, hovering just inches above the stone.

There was a flurry of activity from within the craft. The oculomancers opened the huge sliding doors, and in spite of their ethermancy the cabin suddenly felt cold. They shouted to Fiona, and slowly the craft drifted over to the edge of the monolith, overlooking a blood-red chasm. The landing gears settled down, causing the craft to jolt, and the distant roar of the engines began to wane. One of the women dumped a rope ladder overboard.

Kiera did not follow the oculomancers down into the chasm until after the propellers stopped moving. Fiona opened the door to the flight deck and glided out.

"I'm going to use the lavatory," Claire announced.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"We'll wait for you at the bottom," Fiona said. "Come Kiera. It's time."

Kiera discovered that it was difficult to appear graceful while descending a rope ladder. When she reached the bottom, she entered into another world, a world of shapeless bands of colored rock, separated by airy liminalities which were assaulted on all sides by musical curves. The floor of the chasm was filled with ancient ice, pale against the yellows and reds of the banded chasm walls. Eventually Fiona led the group through a crack that was so narrow that they needed to turn sideways to slip through. The metal Memory Plate was pressed up against a twisted finger-like pillar of raw rock.

Kiera shifted her eyes into the Elemental Plane of Light, that pale-gold sky with its planet-sized teardrops of glass. She began to read the glowing golden text in silence.

Vaska wants me to record this message, just in case the people of this world discover the method of reading it. This is the first such message. We cannot comprehend the nature of the civilization that may discover it. Even if we succeed in our ambitions, it is unlikely that the people of this world will wish to completely abandon their home.

To begin, we must first describe the question that we are trying to answer. At the end of her imprisonment, our master, the Elemental Queen of Darkness, commanded us to research the paths which civilizations take, in the general sense, such that we observe that currency becomes tied to magic. Because currency is a type of promise of future labor, or the memory of labor rendered, it falls into the Domain of the Elemental Queen of Light. Vaska suspects that it is no coincidence that the Queen of Light was the first Elemental to be corrupted, and that bankers were the first to succeed in attempting this type of corruption.

We have observed that access to Elementals has become tied to currency at least two times in the Physical Realm. However, we have not observed this pattern in many of the civilizations in the Elemental Plane of Dreams. Vaska has developed the following hypothesis: "When the rules of magic are clear and strict, and when access to magic is not genetic, then access to magic will always replace precious metals as the canonical value behind paper currency."

We have chosen the Elemental Plane of Heaven as a place to perform experiments with the intent to disconfirm this hypothesis. This pair of worlds is particularly appealing because one of the worlds contains a glut of precious metals, while the other world does not. We have invited settlers from the Physical Realm and the Elemental Plane of Dreams to establish new civilizations and participate in Vaska's experiments.

Addendum 1: Vaska has failed to disconfirm the hypothesis. I've started calling it Vaska's Law, which she finds very amusing.

Addendum 2: Anna, the Queen of the Purple Dragons, has asked Vaska to find a way to allow the Fate Binders to see into the Elemental Plane of Darkness. We have decided to establish ecological testing stations throughout the Elemental Plane of Heaven, including here on this world, for the purpose of evolving a creature with this capability.

There was a gap below the addendums, followed by two trailing messages, written without preamble.

We are very, very sorry. Good luck!

For the second message only, the style of the handwriting was very different from the text above. In fact, the feeling Kiera felt as she read, the meaning of the text being forced into her mind, was so alien that she almost did not recognize it. Compared to the text above, the text below felt distinctly masculine.

Whatever you do, do not help anyone leave! We don't care what they offer. We will offer double! You can find us in the Elemental Plane of Dreams. Ask around for a Blue Dragon named Zakx, or a Red Dragon named Mia. And don't let the Fate Binders find you!

When Kiera finished reading the Memory Plate, she started over from the beginning and read it aloud for the benefit of the oculomancers. At their request, she read it a second time.

"The first part is an interesting little bit of history," Fiona said. "Unfortunately, I was hoping for something, anything, that might help us understand what's wrong with Annatiki."

"I'm sorry," Kiera said.

"However, that final part does seem promising," Fiona continued. "It corroborates the idea that somebody is trying to imprison us here."

"Hey Kiera," Claire said. "Do you remember that night when my brother and his creepy friend asked me to convert to that weird religion?"

"Heritor Maxius the Younger," Kiera said. "And yes, I remember that night."

"My brother said he had memories of another life. Total nonsense, of course. But didn't he also say something about a Blue Dragon?"

"I am trying not to remember that," Kiera said. "He claimed that he spoke to Father Winter. Even worse, he claimed that Father Winter was a Blue Dragon. The sacrilege!"

"We can assume," Fiona began, "that if it's written in Light, and if Kiera can actually speak the words, then what is written must be true. This other Red Dragon named Mia might be Mother Summer. If that's the case, then Reyndell no doubt knew them both personally. We need to talk to Edwin about this immediately. He might know something."

Then Fiona sighed deeply.

"And I'm an idiot!"

"What's wrong?" Kiera asked.

"When I found out that Maxius was helping Seth and Quinn start their Aviation Club, I had an artifact dug out of storage and sent it to Heritor Alyesha. To help her with her little adventure in Renna's region."

"An artifact?"

"One of Renna's experiments," Fiona explained. "The blood and beating heart of a thrall, embedded in a sword. It is just enough to prevent her soul from leaving. Mindlessly, she keeps herself alive with healing weaves. But her primary focus as a thrall is to suppress ethermancy in a small radius. Anyone who uses the sword can kill a Heritor without using an aura."

"But what does that have to do with Edwin Aden?" Kiera asked.

"You sent an emergency message to Heritor Alyesha before we left."

Oh. Mother Summer!

"We need to leave, now," Fiona said.

"What about the other acolytes?" the senior oculomancer asked.

"We leave them behind. They will need to live here for a few days. When I get back to Spire Lyn I will arrange to have another airplane sent to fetch them."

The oculomancers nodded.

"So does that mean I get to go home?" Claire asked.