Her grave
She was gone.
Just like that.
Callan’s hand felt naked without the weight of his wedding ring. Without the barrier of repression, he recalled the exact moment when he gave his wife the amethyst-set one while she placed his on his finger. They stood at the end of a massive parade leading to the courtyard of Melokon’s Spire and traded vows with those rings in front of thousands of people while the most magnificent display of fireworks in recent history flared with light above them. Melokon himself made an appearance, looming over the entire city and blessing the event with words straight from the Great Dragon’s mouth.
That had been one of the best days of his life before everything.
With an inevitable drift of his attention, Callan also remembered that moment in the airless dark when she took her last breath before he blasted her with his final great barrage of Melokon’s Fire. The power scorched through her weak, bluish skin and charred what remained. He prayed that it really had been as painless as he’d tried to make it.
Those memories came to him in a steady stream, a result of the vault where he’d kept all of them- wonderful and horrendous- locked away being ripped open, hinges and all.
So, now it was utterly empty. No more whispers leaked out from the cracks, and all its contents reinserted themselves into his mind exactly where they belonged. Callan knew she wasn’t going to haunt him anymore; instead of the cold her ghost brought that night after the jubilee there was only Halari’s warmth next to him. He leaned against her, using her presence to regather his composure. It was no easy task with his heart, which for the weeks since his liberation was tied together with the thin fibers of will, re-obliterated into a million bleeding pieces.
I have to thank her, Callan thought, glancing at Halari. By Melokon, how do I even begin to thank her for something like this? He opened to his mouth to say... something, anything to let her know just how much she meant to him at this moment, but in that second she snapped to a sitting position as if electrocuted.
“Callan, your wife...” Halari looked at him with wide eyes. “Do you remember her name?”
He did. There was no way he could say it right now, however. Each time he reached within and tried to pull the word up to his tongue, it slipped through his grip like sand to clog up at the base of his throat and choke him. So, he simply nodded wearily.
“I do,” he said.
“And was she...” Halari’s head quirked to the side while she thought. What was forming in there? “She was popular, right?”
“Yeah, the people loved her.” Callan nodded. That was true. Their citizens loved to gossip about her or emulate her fashions during the height of their reign, and she almost always made headlines once or twice a week after they became betrothed. “Why do you ask?”
“’Cause she wasn’t in the histories,” Halari said quickly. “Not in the ones the Melokide showed us or any of the other files they released.”
“Part of me wondered about that,” he said. “I dreaded seeing any mention of her, but it’s like she was—”
“Erased.” He saw at that moment a wave of perfect understanding overtake Halari as if she’d just solved the very mystery of life itself. “‘A word that only you know and that my father tried to erase.’ That’s what Old Flame Kalia said. Callan... the codeword to the Spire is your wife’s name.”
Of course, it is, he thought, rocking back to stare at the sky. It was the most blatant, perfectly obvious answer in the world. He briefly waited for his wife's skull to tell him how stupid he’d been in ignoring that embarrassingly clear fact, but her whisper never came. Her voice, along with the rest of her, was buried just a few feet away and was finally at rest.
“James must have removed her from the history of the world afterward,” Callan rasped, his hate carving through his ribs like a hot blade. “To cover up his crimes. I wonder how Kalia found out about it.”
“Who knows?” Halari said. There was a wondrous look in her eyes as she pieced the mystery together and Callan suddenly couldn’t imagine having to deal with this day without her here. “But that has to be it, right? It makes a lot of sense. Nobody else could possibly guess that to get into the tower.”
“It is that,” he said. “It couldn’t be anything else.”
Halari relaxed back to his side and he wrapped an arm around her. “So, all that’s left now is to get the resources. Maybe train up the militia a little more.”
“That won’t take much longer,” Callan said. “Our troops are already a capable force. We can probably take a few squads out to get everything secure for extraction. Prep the place.”
“We’ll get to all that,” Halari whispered, leaning her head on his shoulder, “but we’re not in a rush. You need time, Callan. This...” She gestured to the mound of gravelly dirt covering the bones of a woman he’d once loved. Still loved. Even as his heart reached for Halari, Callan felt the love for his wife remaining in the tightest fibers of his soul. “This couldn’t’ve been easy.”
“Thank you for being here,” Callan said. “I think without you this day would’ve destroyed me.”
Halari tilted her face up and kissed him gently on the cheek. “Thank you for trusting me with this.”
They sat together for a long time, then as the white glare began to reach for the far horizon, Callan stood, pulling Halari with him by the hand. They drifted together away from the grove and little pond surrounded by violet, glittering shrubs.
Yes, Callan thought, throwing a last look at his wife’s grave. The little bundle of branches Halari had placed there fluttered gently in a light breeze. This really is the perfect place to rest.
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Captain Dalvo took the final air filtration mask from his hand, then saluted sharply. His men mimicked the action, each with their own air masks clamped to their belts. Then, every member of the squad nearby did the same. Callan backpedaled a couple of steps and took it all in with a small grin.
The small strike team from the Scrag Fort waited awkwardly around their vehicles nearby, trading glances between each other and most likely wondering if they should be doing the same thing. Kurt stood in the middle of them as their head; apparently, he wasn’t only a trader, but a commanding officer of something he called Flint Squad: eight of the largest men Callan had ever seen. Each was similarly tattooed and each carried either some kind of hammer- or axe-like weapon along with something resembling the descendant of a pump-action shotgun.
Halari stood at his side, dressed in sturdy, tactical clothing that was much more armored than her usual scouting attire. She also had applied the red paint of the Blood Witch on her face at his suggestion. Something to impress the foreigners.
“Are we sure they’re ready?” she asked, holding him by the elbow with one hand as the other held her rifle which was braced on her shoulder with its barrel to the sky. “Two weeks of pure city navigation training isn’t really that much.”
“I have faith in them,” Callan said, pulling her closer to his side. “And your tutelage. It’s time. They’ll do just fine.”
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All counted, the force stood just over forty armed personnel. Sixteen Fortians, twenty-out-of-fifty-five Quarry militia, Callan himself, and Halari and her team. It was a good party for a mission like this, even though they didn’t fully expect too much trouble.
“People of the Quarry!” Callan turned from the armed expedition force to the assembled mass of townspeople who’d gathered at the base of the Temple’s steps to see them off. “Today we set out to secure the future of our home! Prepare yourselves, for once we return, the true work of building our way to the stars and taking what belongs to us begins!”
The crowd cheered just like they did seven days ago when he made the official announcement to them. They were excited, eager, and Callan desperately did not want to disappoint them.
“With our allies from the Scrag Fort...” He gestured to the Flint Squad, and the crowd applauded. The Fortians suddenly looked abashed down to the last bullish man as if they’d never received such a glowing response. “We will lock down the Spire of Melokon, fortify, and make ready for the extraction of the wealth within!”
More cheers and applause. Callan smiled warmly down at them. Would she be proud of what he’d done here? The pain of his wife’s loss and the memories lanced through him; two weeks wasn’t nearly enough to heal, but Halari’s proximity instantly soothed him almost completely.
“If all goes well,” he continued, “we’ll return with news tonight! Now come! Come tell your heroes good luck!” Callan waved to the armed forces and the people swarmed towards them, rabid with glory and appreciation.
“Poor Dalvo,” Halari said. “He never knows what to do with all this attention. Look, he’s still saluting.”
Callan chuckled, then laughed as a young woman sprang forward and pecked the young officer on the cheek, causing the shorter man to finally break composure and blush furiously while she dashed away.
“Ohhh no, Viri’s gonna be pissed,” Halari whispered. “She gotta bit of a crush on him after the jubilee. Talks Mada’s ear off all the time.”
“Really?” Callan asked. He glanced at Dalvo, then to the blonde who stood with the rest of Halari’s team and was, sure enough, glaring in the direction of the young woman. “I suppose... I could see it.”
“Pffft, I can’t,” Halari said. “Now come on, let’s get moving before Viri strains herself.”
Callan rallied the troops away from their audience and pulled them into formation with the trawlers and ATVs at the center of the main street. Kurt and his Flint Squad gathered in the rear while he, Halari, and her team took the lead. Citizens lined the sidewalks all the way to the first few feet of the entry ramp.
After that, it was mostly quiet; the black wasteland didn’t encourage many conversations. Callan picked up some idle chatter from his men and the Fortians, but nobody spoke above a murmur, like anything more might draw attention from hostile creatures lurking in the dark cracks. It got even quieter once the militiamen realized they were past their usual patrol zones.
“It’s like they think the world’s gonna eat ‘em,” Halari said beside him on her trawler. She didn’t bother yelling since she knew he could hear no matter what.
By Melokon, it might, Callan thought grimly, revving his own trawler faster.
They made it to their first obstacle in good time. Halari’s team had done well clearing rubble from the street leading to the gate of the inner city’s wall, and they drove right down unheeded.
It really is a masterpiece, Callan thought, gazing up to the top of the fortification in wonder. The wall was a perfect tribute to the capabilities of human engineering and an even more perfect monument of human warfare with its craters and scars. Its gate was closed and unpowered, but that wasn’t a problem. Over days, Halari’s team, using welding torches and other metalworking tools, had ripped away a lot of the metal paneling to reveal the gridwork skeleton underneath and the huge gear-lock keeping it latched.
“You gotta pick for that thing?” Kurt asked, rolling up beside him. His tattoos wriggled when he scrunched his face. “Or some kind of giant wrench?”
“Better,” Callan said. “I have my claws.” He approached the gate and held up a hand. The Dragon’s Talons formed around his arm like a gauntlet, giving each finger a wicked claw made of faint purple-red light. He ripped the lock apart like a piece of meat, then grabbed one wing of the gate at the center and peeled it open.
“Well, that’s... handy,” Kurt growled, stroking his thick beard. “You know, back home, we got this huge slab of granite that needs wreckin’. Could you... maybe...?”
Callan stared blankly at the man until Halari started giggling into her hand.
“I mean, I'd be willin’ to trade for the work,” Kurt grumbled. “Plus, the people would love to see you do your... thing. They got real excited when I told them about you.”
“Perhaps something can be arranged,” Callan said, reseating on his ATV. “After this, the Scrag Fort definitely deserves some favor.”
“Thanks, uh... Great One?” The Fortian looked unsure of how to address him, but Callan didn’t correct him as he turned to the force.
“Masks on, everyone!” he called. They obeyed quickly and donned their filtration equipment. Whatever the smoke saturating the city was, it appeared to be super heavy to the point that it didn’t really move from where it sat floating a few feet off the road. When everyone had their masks fixed to their faces, Callan waved them forward.
The first whiff he caught was foul. It was like a sewer spoiled over centuries- which he realized it actually had- then upon catching fire, the chemicals reacted to create the worst odor of his two-millennium life. He almost asked for a mask himself.
“How are they holding?” he asked Halari. “Not losing air rapidly or breaking, right?”
“Got a few hours in them,” Halari said. Her war paint was warped behind the transparent surface of the mask. “But we should probably move fast.”
“This place is fucked up,” Kurt growled, readying his maul. “Old Fort legends say it burned for a hundred nights and was attacked by big monsters made of clouds. That true?”
“There was a war,” Callan said, “but by then I’d been locked away into the earth. Saw none of it.”
“Oh...” The big man looked suddenly afraid and gripped his maul tighter. “So you’re that one? Guess you’re not dead.”
“You just put that together?” Halari asked.
“I kinda thought maybe one just came back for us,” Kurt said with a timid shrug. “Us at the Fort don’t really care, but...”
“When we’re done here,” Callan said with a placating wave, “I’ll show you the real truth. Just pretend to trust me for a little while, alright?”
“We still get our share?” Kurt asked, lowering his hammer.
“Of course,” Callan said. “Now, let’s keep moving.”
They rolled quietly through the foggy streets. Callan kept his eyes out for anything moving in the dense, dark green smoke. It billowed in weird shapes that moved like something walking, but nothing lunged for them in the murk.
Like a spike of darkness, the Spire of Melokon rose ever-so-tall before them, rising higher and higher as they approached. It used to be a much more pleasant sight, a place that he used to find comfort in returning to after tours in the Dominion. Now, it resembled a headstone for his failures. His defeat. Everything he’d failed to protect.
‘We will avenge us,’ Halari’s promise echoed in his mind, strong and willful. It drove him forward regardless of the dismay that his once glorious, sky-piercing palace exuded. Eventually, the surrounding city structures gave way to the Spire’s presence, creating a wide circle clear of buildings around the perimeter of its courtyard. The area was rather barren, but there were some wide, waist-high, metal barricades scattered around. Most were concentrated near the building’s base to form a makeshift wall. Each barricade was dented or marked with signs of ancient violence.
“So where’s the door?” Halari asked, looking up and down the sleek, black surface.
“Hidden, most likely,” Callan said, parking his trawler and stepping onto the ground. “The real question is where the unlocking device can be found.” He studied everything nearby from wall to barricade, looking for anything telling.
On the ground a few steps away, he caught sight of two metal studs sticking up from the concrete. They sat about four feet apart from each other. Further inspection revealed the faint, eroded lines of an image carved into the stone between them.
A Dragon’s head.
Smart, Callan thought. James’s daughter was very much proving to be a genius of the highest echelon of cunning and craftiness; only one with sight like his could easily spot the studs and make out the sigil in the ground. Callan stepped onto the carved picture, held out two hands to the floor, then unleashed two arcs of Melokon’s Fire at the studs. Violet light traced the dragon’s head and the circle surrounding it, highlighting everyone nearby in an amethyst hue.
“Wow,” Halari breathed. Kurt grunted in approval, then stepped back to be with his men.
With a hiss of depressurized air, a metallic plinth rose in front of him to stand at his sternum. A red light flickered on and projected holographic text into the air above it.
‘SECURITY ACTIVATED,’ it read. Then under it: ‘ENTER PASSCODE FOR ACCESS.’ The text boxes disappeared, then a keyboard appeared in the air.
Now is the hour. Callan moved his hand for the letters but hesitated. Even fourteen days after burying her, his wife’s name resisted returning to a world that didn’t deserve it. Could he really type it so cheaply when he couldn’t bring himself to speak it aloud?
“Callan,” Halari’s voice pulled him from sinking into inaction. He turned to her and took in her reassuring smile, her beauty, her strength. “It’s alright.”
“Yeah,” Callan sighed, nodding. “Yes, it is.” He pressed each letter reverently.
C-H-R-I-S-T-A.
The plinth flashed green, then descended into the stone where a textured lid slid back into place over it, masking it from view perfectly.
Before them, the Spire of Melokon came to life.