Hermera

The 18th of Thargelion

The Year 4631 in the Era of Mortals

The orange light turned out to be a cluster of bioluminescent micro-creatures gathered around an underwater cave. Lyssa and the others treaded water, watching for more monsters while Gigator explored it. They’d been lucky, so far. After the Managorged Anglers, nothing else had attacked them. The water itself was proving hazardous, however. Their Stamina regeneration was incredibly slow and Grimmolt could not swim at all. Lyssa’s own stamina was still relatively high, sitting around sixty percent. A look at the others showed that they had not dedicated as much time to swimming as she had.

Most of the group had latched themselves onto the wall, trying to give tired legs a break as they kept themselves above water with their arms. Despoina looked to be the second worst swimmer of the bunch. Clearly her upbringing had been spent far away from water, as she panted the hardest of all of them. There was no room for conversation. None of them wanted to risk attracting undesirable attention.

Gigator resurfaced in their midst without a ripple, eliciting muffled curses from Iosif and Eleftherios.

“It goes for some time, but there is air on the other side. It leads deeper into the dungeon, toward the mountain.”

“How can you tell?” Grimmolt croaked, his voice having recovered somewhat.

“The water,” the sauros said, as though the answer was obvious.

“Then that’s the way we’ll go. Gigator, can you bring Grimmolt?” Lyssa had no patience for any petty back-and-forths.

Gigator nodded and, with a single hand, lifted Grimmolt from Eleftherios’s back and placed the dwarf onto his own.

“I don’t like being dwarf-handled,” Grimmolt grumbled.

“Then learn to swim.”

The dwarf muttered something under his breath that made Gigator chuckle, a husky, hissing noise that didn’t quite communicate pleasure. Lyssa prepared her nerves and lungs with a few deep breaths, then dove. The tunnel was three meters below them but reaching it turned out to be the easiest part of the dive.

Once inside, Lyssa used the walls to kick off and propel herself forward, but the tunnel extended much further than she expected. The pressure built in her chest. She knew the sensations, counted them as they came. First, her lungs would beg for air. The need to breathe would incite panic, which would only complicate her situation. She would fight it for as long as she could, dragging herself forward through the water, and either she would reach the other side, or the need for air would force her to suck in water and she would be lost. Once water entered her lungs, she would lose control of her body, shake and convulse, then she would die.

It was a horrible way to go.

Her jaw flexed as she forced her lips shut against the water, keeping an eye out for any glimmer of air above. At long last, she found one. Lyssa broke the surface and gasped, throwing herself halfway onto a rocky shelf as she struggled to work her lungs.

Gigator broke through the water next, depositing the dwarf onto the rock beside Lyssa. The sauros didn’t even have the decency to look winded, he simply resubmerged and headed back to get the others. Grimmolt, however, was doing about as well as Lyssa. He rested on his back, his large hands wiping the water out of his fresh stubble while he stared up at the glimmering reflection of the glowing micro-creatures. After a minute to regain her breath, Lyssa pulled herself up onto the shelf and looked down at the water below.

For perhaps the first time, she was glad Arche wasn’t with her. His acquired fear of water had not been kind to him in the last few months, and this swim would definitely have exacerbated that fact. Still, his optimism and natural leadership would have been nice to take into the inevitable battles ahead. Instead, it fell to her to lead them; woe to them all.

One by one, occasionally moreso, the others arrived. Gigator ended up helping Despoina, who was not a strong swimmer, and Iosif, who had been injured in their fight. Both were wild-eyed by the time they were holding onto land again but neither complained.

Five minutes after the last of them surfaced, Lyssa stood, indicating it was time to carry on. The tunnel extended ahead of them, dark and menacing. She held her bow at the ready, an arrow nocked but relaxed. There was no telling what lay ahead.

As it turned out, walking was ahead. A lot of it. Lyssa tried to keep watch for traps but it was difficult to stay vigilant when she found nothing of the sort. In fact, there was no evidence of any goblins at all.

The tunnel dried out as they ventured deeper. It was clearly a natural tunnel, as it changed direction often and varied in size. Through much of it they were able to walk three abreast but, in some portions, Gigator had to squeeze to get through.

“Don’t suppose this area floods, do you?” Iosif muttered.

“Now I do,” came Eleftherios’s annoyed reply. “Quiet.”

Spirits were low. In an hour of walking, they hadn’t seen any sign of the goblins and they were well behind in their pursuit. Lyssa tried not to think about what the goblins might be doing to the children. She didn’t know much about the hateful things, but what she’d heard wasn’t good. They were greed and consumption, not terribly dissimilar from humans in that regard but without the capacity for kindness. To be a goblin was to kill, eat, and dominate all in your path.

The only good goblin was a dead goblin.

These dark thoughts ground to a halt as they came to a large cavern, light spilling forth into the tunnel. Lyssa stopped short, forcing everyone else to halt behind her. A couple grumbles came from the back, but they were silenced by a sharp gesture as Lyssa stalked toward the opening.

A massive, white sphere floated ten meters above them, illuminating the room. Two smaller spheres—one blue, one green— rotated around the central orb at various speeds. On the floor of the cavern, arcane sigils were carved into the stone.

“Is that the sun?” Despoina asked, walking into the room after Lyssa.

“And the moons,” Vik breathed.

“Let me through!”

Grimmolt pushed his way forward until he was at the front of the group.

“Oh, would that my forefathers could have seen a sight like this.”

“What is this?” Lyssa asked.

“This is a celestial chart. It’s not just the sun and moons, look there.” The dwarf pointed toward the distant ceiling. “Those dots are stars and constellations. But there’s more. Look at the ground, here. This whole cavern has been rigged into an arcane seal.”

“To what end?” Elpida asked, eyeing the glowing spheres distrustfully.

“To get through those doors, I imagine.” Lyssa gestured at two large doors set into the opposite side of the cavern, some hundred meters distant. “Do you know how to solve it, Grimmolt?”

Grimmolt shrugged. “We’ll have to input the proper date to get everything to align, but how to do that and which date, I don’t know.”

Lyssa turned her eyes to the inscribed ground.

“Is it safe to walk on?”

Vik knelt next to the outer edge of the inscription. After a minute of close investigation, he straightened back up.

“It’s safe. It’s magical, but it shouldn’t affect us.”

“Shouldn’t?” Lyssa raised an eyebrow.

Vik stepped onto the seal.

“Doesn’t,” he amended.

Lyssa stepped forward as well.

“We need to find the control mechanism as well as some clue as to what date we’re searching for. Split into pairs, everyone.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

The others quickly broke off into pairs, but Grimmolt stared at the floating sun and slowly drifting moons. His face was soft and his mouth was slightly open as he took in the sight.

“Never in all my days,” he said quietly, “did I imagine something like this existed.”

“I’m not certain anyone would expect to find the sky underground,” Lyssa pointed out.

Grimmolt waved her comment away distractedly.

“Not that. A celestial chart. Do you understand what this means? The secrets this could unlock?”

“I was not a Starwatcher.”

Grimmolt pointed at a cluster of stars, far above.

“That there is a constellation as old as the era itself. It’s called Orion, after one of your people. If we can find out how to manipulate this device, we could see the sky as it was in the past. We could learn histories, see the astrological connection, but we could also model for the future.”

“Signs and portents?” Lyssa scowled. Future-guessing was a game for the very old and the very mad.

“That and more. I believe the celestial bodies influence magic, both crafting and casting, for the Rank of Legend and above. I have long tried to push my theory through the Technocratic Society, but they refused to heed me. They said the stars could not affect those who dwelled below the surface. With access to this, I could prove them wrong. Do you understand?”

“Not entirely,” Lyssa admitted. “But I can see that it is important to you. When this hateful business is over, perhaps we will find an opportunity to return and study this contraption.”

Grimmolt tore his eyes away from the lights above them and met Lyssa’s. If her Perception had not been so finely tuned over her long life, she might have missed the slight softening of his eyes.

“Found something.”

Elpida stood over something in the center of the sigil, directly beneath the floating sun. Lyssa joined the others as they congregated there.

“It’s a hand dial,” Elpida said. “You place your hand inside and turn it in the direction you want it to go. Left for backward, right for forward, I reckon. Not sure how the date is told, though.”

“It’s these markings, here,” Vik jumped in, pointing to a set of runes above the dial. “See how these are glowing softly? That’s not a reflection from the sun. This is the current date.”

“What language is that?” Iosif asked, peering at the strange runes.

“That’s the interesting part,” Vik said. “It’s the secret calendar of the Moon Elves – but I’ve never heard of other Moon Elves being this far south. This is either very old or it was put here by someone very secretive.”

“Or both,” Despoina pointed out.

“Or both,” Vik echoed. “Now that we’ve found the control mechanism, we just need to find the hint.”

“That’s not quite all,” Elpida said, gesturing back toward the dial. “You see those spikes? This mechanism is designed to extract a sacrifice.”

“What kind of sacrifice?” Eleftherios asked, scratching his head.

“Looks like blood.”

Lyssa bared her teeth. “I hate sanguimancy.”

“I don’t think there’s any getting around it until the mechanism is unlocked. Part of the sigil on the ground is disrupted.”

“What?”

Elpida gestured at one of the distant lines carved into the floor.

Lyssa moved to take a closer look. Sure enough, the pattern didn’t quite fit. A sharply curved section failed to connect to the nearby lines. The sheer complexity and size of the sigil had kept them from noticing it before.

“I don’t think there’s a riddle to solve,” Lyssa called out. “I think we have to find the date that fixes the sigil.”

“But that would be gaiamancy,” Eleftherios said. “How would the sun and stars affect the ground.”

“Tartarus is also a celestial body,” Grimmolt said. “Gaiamancy is just a more basic and specialized application of a deeper field of Celestial Magic. I will make the sacrifice to operate this. I am owed this much.”

Lyssa nodded her assent and turned to the others.

“Vik, you stay with Grimmolt. You’re the only one who can read the dates. That might be significant. The rest of you, I want you to spread out and find areas where the sigil doesn’t quite fit together. Once this starts moving, call out whenever things begin to line up.”

“What are you going to do?” Elpida asked.

Lyssa pointed at one of the craggy walls.

“I’m going to look at the sigil from above.”

They moved to find their respective locations. When all signaled they were ready, Grimmolt put his hand into the dial and stifled a cry. Then he twisted his hand to the left and everything shifted. The sun meandered a lazy circle around the center point of the sigil, which was perhaps the subtlest of the changes. The moons picked up speed, whirring around so quickly that they blurred into rings of blue and green light. The stars, however, moved most of all. Streams crossed the ceiling of the cavern like a waterfall of light as constellations whipped past far too quickly to recognize.

However all that happened above them paled in comparison to what happened below. The sigil moved, lines of complex runes and symbols flailing about in a barely coordinated manner as Grimmolt turned the calendar backward. Lyssa saw it all from her perch, fifteen meters up the wall. Those on the ground stumbled and had to catch their footing as stone and dirt beneath them shifted.

The speed increased, the moons whipping about the air until the artificial wind threatened to unseat Lyssa. She dug her hands into a crack in the wall to keep from being dislodged. The sun dipped lower until it was practically touching the ground, its light searing into Vik and Grimmolt who crouched next to it, unable to hide from its piercing attention. Then, just when it seemed they would be crushed, the sun and moons disappeared and everything stopped with a jerk, like an insect captured by a web. There was no pull or slowing of motion; it was like time itself had stopped to catch its breath.

The first among them to react was Grimmolt, who let out a pained groan and collapsed sideways. Vik caught the dwarf’s head, keeping it from smacking against the stone floor, but there was little else he could do. Even from her vantage, Lyssa could see that the dwarf’s right arm was desiccated, the strong muscles wrung and drained until there was little left but bone and skin. Guilt bloomed in her gut but she forced herself to quash it. He had volunteered, unbidden, knowing that there would be a cost. She only hoped that Odelia would be able to restore him once they rescued her.

Looking past Grimmolt, the sigil on the floor was complete. It seemed that the correct date for the celestial chart wasn’t an exact date at all, it was simply the beginning, as far left as the device would go. Lyssa dropped down to the ground and rejoined the others.

“I don’t believe it,” Vik was saying as she approached. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t make sense?”

“The date.”

Lyssa looked at the glowing runes.

“What does it say?”

“It says it’s showing the day before the beginning.”

Lyssa frowned. “The beginning of what?”

Vik bit his lip and looked away, clearly undergoing some inner turmoil. He grimaced and shook his head, clearly having made some decision.

“The beginning of Tartarus.”

“Don’t be daft,” Iosif said. “Tartarus has always existed. Everyone knows that.”

Vik fixed the man with such a look of disdain, Iosif shut his mouth with an audible snap.

“The Moon Elves keep a secret history that dates back to shortly after the beginning. What we know of the beginning has been told to us by Selene herself. She taught us the calendar.”

“Selene is just a floating rock in the sky, held on course by Tartarus’s gravity,” Despoina said softly. “It’s not a person.”

“Our histories say otherwise and I am inclined to believe them. You do not have to believe me. In fact, I would rather prefer it if you didn’t, but I am telling you the truth. This is history, as it has been recorded by the moon elves.”

Lyssa looked at the center of the sigil, where the sun had disappeared. It had been hard to tell, with how quickly they had moved, but she could have sworn it had something to do with the moons as well.

“What do your histories say happened in the beginning?”

“That the sun and moons were born from the child of ground and sky.”

Lyssa knelt at the center of the sigil and placed her hand against the ground. It was warm to her touch and a prickle ran across her palm as sweat beaded on her skin. She closed her eyes and kept her hand in place.

“What are you trying to tell us?” she whispered.

The Celestial Chart has been successfully deactivated.

Remove Celestial Core?

Yes

No

Lyssa glanced at the door in the far wall and saw that it was still closed. Considering that the notification said they had ‘successfully’ deactivated the celestial chart, Lyssa felt this was the right course of action. A small cylinder of sunlight pushed its way up from the dirt, coming to rest beneath her fingers. She touched it, ready to pull her hand away, but it was cool beneath her skin. It gave off quite a bit of light, now that the sun wasn’t around to deliver its brilliance to the cavern.

Turning back to the others, she let them see what she held. Not one of them could find the words to say. It was like she held a ray of sunshine in her hands, solid yet ephemeral. Lyssa moved with carefully measured steps, not wanting to do anything that might jostle the wonder she held.

“Grimmolt Sidergrothia,” she said, coming to a halt in front of the dwarf. “For your sacrifice and your service, I bestow this gift to you.”

Grimmolt’s face slackened with shock. He held out his left-hand, timid and shaking, as though he expected her to snatch it away at any moment. Lyssa placed the solid sunshine into his hand and he held it tight to his chest.

“I don’t know what a celestial core is, but if anyone can find a purpose for it, it’s you,” Lyssa continued. “Myriatos thanks you.”

Grimmolt did not respond. He cradled the sunlight, marveling at it, then placed it into his inventory and the light disappeared. A deep stony grating noise drowned any further conversation. They all looked back toward the door on the opposite side of the cavern.

“It’s open,” Lyssa said for the benefit of those who could not see in the near dark. “Let’s go.”