The Underworld was a hellish place for a harpy, especially a royal.

Dark, tight pockets in bedrock, linked only by narrow tunnels crawling with hostile life, they threw up endless barriers to impede progress and hinder flight for a being the scale of the Harpy Queen.

With thunder and lightning Aellope tore through them all.

If the caves beneath Southtown would not admit her due to her size then the Stormqueen had only to resize them. If the denizens of the passages would not abide her due to her species, she had only to carbonize them.

It had been some time since she passed underground at Southtown, days at her guess. Her storm magic had slowed the response of the occupiers, but enemies from both ruined surface and hidden depths had rallied to repulse her.

Aellope tore through them too.

Hours blurred as she raced through the underground, negotiating tight passages, running on foot when she couldn’t fly, crawling when the tunnels were too low to stand and too long to break apart. With claws and tail as well as spells, she dispatched anything in her way, destroying those monsters or warriors foolish enough to oppose her as she searched for her sister.

At least one day must surely have elapsed, as her exhaustion had forced her to retreat to rest. After that short and fitful snatched sleep she redoubled her efforts. She had to make up for the lost time.

The endless swarms of obstacles, of barriers artificial and natural, had taken a toll, but the scattered enemies were growing denser, despite her exhausting struggle.

That was good. That meant her sister yet lived.

Arawn had to be well and close by for there to be so many foes. Their wide spread meant they didn’t have her cornered yet either.

It made her smile to think of her sister and the Valkyries making fools of their subterranean foes, on what should have been home ground, but her sister’s mobility also complicated matters. In the labyrinthine Underworld they could easily miss each other.

Aellope strained her senses, feeling for some trace of her sister’s mana.

She couldn’t sense her little sister yet, but still the Stormqueen halted. She couldn’t detect Arawn, but she did feel something out of the ordinary; out of that which seemed ordinary to this hostile alien domain. It was much too distant to be Arawn – many miles below and off to the side.

That she picked up on it at all was a testament to the sheer power of the phenomena.

Strange, resonant energy was welling up from the bowels of the Underworld, from an unimaginable depth, intensifying moment on moment, moving with mystifying yet defined purpose.

She could almost hear words amid the tumultuous energies, but it was no mere spell. More than mana was at work in the unknown reaches below, and no creature could possess such overwhelming power. The very rock all about shuddered, yet not with force.

It was as though the world itself were trembling.

At first Ael feared it some work of the enemy, some desperate attempt to employ a weapon that would destroy everything above it.

Then she felt something else, something small yet implacable at the locus of that vast power.

It was perplexingly familiar.

“Safkhet?” she asked aloud.

But that was quite impossible.

Wind heeded no want, and Arcadia was not so kind as to spare her friend. Even if Saf had somehow survived, had escaped death and against all reason made her way into the dead places beneath the world, for all her overwhelming essence the human had never possessed power such as this.

No being had, save perhaps the very gods themselves.

Even as she was frozen in thought, the presence had vanished amid the agonizing nexus of force and living will.

For short seconds the Stormqueen wondered if the power would dissipate, disperse without disaster.

Then it returned, stronger than ever. A burning sun shone out from the deep with arcane yet comforting radiance. All around it there gathered cataclysmic power, crushing all with the pressure of its meaning. With cold clarity Aellope understood it was not mana; it was something greater.

Finally the storm reached its zenith. Erupting, the maelstrom of power stuck her, the exploding energy ignoring all obstructions as it radiated out.

Tremors announced the terrible release to those unable to feel the bursting, surging power below, the cavern around Ael wracked by powerful quaking. Even the air shuddered in dread at the fearful presence below.

When the shaking at last subsided so too did the energy. The presence from beneath faded away to nothing, as though it were never there.

Aellope was left shaken and confused, but unharmed. The event was not meant for her. The chamber and tunnels around her too were intact. Nothing hinted at what purpose had awoken so terrible a power.

Ael found she didn’t care.

Her sister was close by and in deadly peril.

She had already scattered their mothers to the sky. She couldn’t lose Arawn too. Let Arcadia tear itself apart if the gods wished it, so long as her beloved little sister survived.

Nothing else mattered.

~~~

It was multiple wheels since Ivaldi’s whirlwind departure from the Deephold. Leaving that very wheel, there had been only moments to scratch out a simple message to Reginn and his sister before he was packed onto a military crawler, along with his equipment, assistants and escorts.

The latter were the Justicar’s people through and through. Despite not being Varangians, each was armed with a production Skidbladnir, save the leader. Uldmar was the Justicar’s nephrew, and he piloted his heirloom Skidbladnir with consummate skill.

Ivaldi had heard from Reginn that in his youth Uldmar had attempted to join the Varangian guard, and would have been warmly welcomed with his abilities had it not been for his uncle’s objection.

Remembering Justicar Hreidmar’s words the wheel he left, Ivaldi had feared that Uldmar and his squad’s true objective was to see to it that Ivaldi never reached his destination of Northastr.

After several wheels’ travel they had done no more than watch him, and the crowded nature of the crawler further eased that concern, however their close attention would be a problem of its own when they arrived.

Even if the escorts truly meant him no harm, he would still need to find a way to trick or escape them if he was to accomplish his true goal. Investigating Vitrgraf would be impossible with Uldmar in tow, even if he could somehow persuade the humorless man to assent to a trip down to the mine. No, Ivaldi would have to ditch the Varangians if he was to learn the truth of the disaster the Justicar was trying to cover up.

Anxious as he was, he had spent little time in the shared compartments of the crawler, passing most of the journey thus far in a cramped personal cabin within the vehicle.

Not entirely dissimilar to the four-legged litters that lesser nobles employed in the Deephold, the vehicle Ivaldi travelled in was a military version of common cargo crawlers, the backbone of trade within the Kingdom.

Works of aulogemscis though they were, the machines were a far cry from Skidbladnir, yet they were just as vital to the continuation of the Pharyes way of life.

The Deephold and the other settlements over which King Jotunn presided were spread out across many miles of the lowest levels of the Underworld. The Pharyes did not settle carelessly – in the deep of the Underworld a settlement was a huge investment, and a great risk. Although some had, over time, grown to be thriving cities with a variety of people and industries, all were founded with specific purposes.

One town might mine metals to be sent to the Deephold, where they were processed into hydraulics. Another town, a hundred miles in the opposite direction, would synthesize the fluid that moved them. The latter, the fjolkyngi, was a substance integral to modern aulogemscis, but many more materials besides that were needed to create even a single footsoldier.

Not everyone had their own Skidbladnir, even among the high nobility, and even a simpler litter as the lesser nobles used would be prohibitively expensive for most pharyes. That would leave travelling the huge distances on foot to deliver vital supplies.

Arcadia was a world of great variety. For the Ogres, with their long limbs and powerful builds, such trips might not seem overly onerous, yet the Pharyes boasted legs no more than six inches long.

Walking distances on miniature legs, laden with goods and luggage, burdened further with the need to protect your caravan and negotiate rough terrain, would be a journey of months for them. It was pure impossibility.

If those seemingly distant settlements were the vital organs of the Kingdom, linked by tunnels like arteries, then crawlers were the blood which sustained them.

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The machines were modular, cargo and passenger compartments interspaced with control modules, loading arms and even weapons sections. Crawlers weren’t war machines, so the latter were usually reserved for clearing away nuisance monsters the vehicle encountered, but they were vital defenses for any crawler venturing up to the Formorians’ heights.

Each of the segments was roughly spherical, sides formed by interlocking metal triangles. Two pairs of triple-jointed legs emerged from the lower third of each side, connected to a central gemstone core which provided power to the module.

At the front and rear were movable metal armatures which could open to allow access, but also interlock to seal the vehicle, or link with those of adjacent segments to allow their hydraulics to mate together, creating the flexible train of modules that made up a crawler.

These trains of linked segments could grow hundreds of yards long, yet were just one segment thick. With the articulation of their joints they could pass through relatively narrow spaces with ease, or cross wide gaps.

So Ivaldi had been discovering for the past few hours.

When he voiced his displeasure at the confined, uncomfortable conditions at the start of the wheel, the captain had suggested he might prefer to join her and the crew in the front compartment, to sit ‘up top’, in one of the observation pods.

An older woman with an impatient but professional air, Ivaldi had failed to notice the smirk on the captain’s face as she showed him to the angled seat, promising him an excellent view.

Leaning forwards and out from the side of the vehicle, accessed by steps up from the control room, the pod was enclosed only by a transparent pyramid of windows, joined seamlessly to afford the occupant a clear view. Outside the panels were a ring of running lights mounted on the hull, a few of the many which studded the crawler. Their green glow illuminated the surroundings clearly out to some distance, even in areas devoid of plant life.

When he arrived there the terrain had seemed quite benign – nice flat cavern floor stretching out around them, not excellent, but a pleasant diversion from metal walls and ceilings.

But the captain was no liar. Some hours later, tilted forwards and stuck out from the side of the crawler as he was, Ivaldi had an excellent view indeed. It was a view not only of the roof and wall of the tunnel outside, but also of the ground below – or the arresting lack thereof.

Directly ahead and beneath him was nothingness, but either to either side of that gap the stone stopped mere feet from the ends of the crawler’s legs.

Ivaldi groaned as the crawler lumbered clumsily over another gap in the cliff. The aulogemscire pressed himself against his chair anxiously, as though the panels might give way and the leather straps fail at any moment, leaving him to tumble from the crawler and plummet into the fathomless darkness of the rift.

Looking up, the view was of a dizzying gulf of blackness, framed only by stalactites, stretching out further than Ivaldi could see, as though the world simply ended with the cliff to which the crawler clung.

He could have simply retreated back to the blissful ignorance of his cabin. The crew had already grown tired of laughing at his moans and squirming, so there was little point in trying to preserve his wounded pride further.

Ivaldi reminded himself that, in reality, he would be no safer there than where he was.

Gripping the hand rests tight he stayed stubbornly in place, long past the point at which the captain and crew might have expected his resolve to break.

The captain had taken pity on him after the first hour and suggested that he might like to come join her in the control room below, but Ivaldi politely declined her.

The Chief Aulogemscire was no stalwart soldier, but there was a peculiar admirability to his refusal to yield.

So it was that he was sitting there still, when suddenly an alarm blared in the cockpit below and behind him.

“Incoming tremors!” the captain called out. “Pilot, brace!”

The crawler vibrated with essence, whining as pistons moved the legs, driving stakes down into the awfully powdery, soft rock of the cliff side to anchor the machine in place.

“What’s happening?!” Ivaldi cried, asking no-one in particular.

“Seismic activity! Just hold tight,” answered the captain, somewhere out of his sight, behind and below.

The first quake hit, and Ivaldi screamed as the Crawler shifted with the shaking, his crystal nails splitting the leather of his chair as he clung to it for his life.

“We’re picking up something else, Captain!” spoke another unseen voice. “Huge mana signature!”

“What? Where?!”

“Somewhere below and ahead, rangefinder isn’t working.”

“Below? There’s nothing below us!” the Captain snapped. “Learn to read your damn instruments!”

Ivaldi strained his neck to look back into the compartment and see what they were detecting, but a moment later there was no need to. He could feel it for himself.

Something far beneath them was radiating power beyond anything he had ever imagined, an immense energy source so intense that he felt its resonance in his bones.

Their peril was all but forgotten as his mind raced. He struggled to imagine what force could possibly release such power. It couldn’t be natural; nature would never allow such a dense conglomeration of power… some forgotten Dweomer relic then? But the Dweomer had never delved that deep, had they? Even if they had, even they couldn’t command power such as this… it was impossible.

But there was no doubting it was real – fresh tremors struck them with redoubled violence, the crawler shaking and creaking, the very air coming alive with essence.

Around them rock cracked, boulders thudding off the hull, stalactites breaking loose from high above to plunge like spears down into the depths. A huge tapered pillar of stone crashed down just to one side of Ivaldi’s pyramid, gouging a circular chunk from the cliff and continuing on into the pit below.

When the tumultuous release subsided Ivaldi was almost surprised to find that the crawler was still there, anchored firmly to the cliffside.

Sweaty and shaking, he climbed down from the observation pod with the help of the captain and one of her crew. Their apologies went ignored as he begged for whatever data they could offer him about the event.

Soon the crawler was back underway, but no-one could explain what had happened, or even where the emanation had originated.

Back in the false yet comforting safety of his cabin, Ivaldi stripped off his sticky mushroom leathers and lay back on his bunk, still reeling from the event.

Idly his fingers found a loose screw in the corner of the bunk with which to worry, as the sequence replayed in his thoughts.

He wondered if there could be any connection between his mission and the anomalous outburst. It was a troubling idea, but it was hard to imagine how that might be. If the Justicar could command forces like that he would already reign over the Deephold and surface alike.

~~~

Justicar Hreidmar was at dinner when the tremors began.

Quakes were uncommon in the kingdom, but not unheard of. His dinner guests had been quite startled then, to see the Justicar pale visibly, joining the walls in shuddering.

Many found themselves ill at ease however, as sinister energies rose up with the seismic movements. Not all pharyes had a talent for sensing essence, but none present missed the sensation carried to them by the quake, or failed to notice the way the very air seemed to shiver along with its surroundings.

The only damage was the destruction of a particularly fine crystal goblet, which fell from Hreidmar’s hand during the event, but those present observed the clear dismay on their Justicar’s face at its loss.

Excuses were made, and Justicar Hreidmar bid a hasty retreat, leaving his family warren in his Skidbladnir to head down towards the palace.

The news from around the Deephold was similarly benign, given the disturbing power that had been released. No deaths were reported, and only a few minor injuries were recorded.

Some wheels later a crawler would arrive, with a report of more serious damage to the North, where the bedrock was softer in places and the event had been more intense. They too had suffered no loss of life, but repair teams would be dispatched to clear away debris and get goods flowing smoothly once more.

For the average pharyes, the incident would be thought of as no more than a curiosity; unexplained, but unthreatening.

~~~

Thessaly woke with from her siesta with a jolt.

Sitting up she looked about for the source her waking, but could see no cause for alarm.

Enclosed on all sides by stone, the priestess’s chambers were dark and calm, cool despite the midday heat outside.

Something must have disturbed her, however. Stress seemed the obvious answer. The stress of orchestrating her secret, desperate plan to overturn the fall of the Empire, risking everything to save her people, even at the cost of breaking her vows and condemning her family.

Even now, with Aellope and Arawn missing and the Empire under carefully-orchestrated invasion, still Thessaly couldn’t be sure of success. It took little to make her heart race and her hands shake in these woeful times.

Just that morning Ventora had come to her with grave news to add to her troubles; a revolt in Ramhorn to the southwest. Although the town itself was small, it lay at the edge of an expansive territory. The grassy mountain valleys and high altitude forests were populated by hunters, herders and farmers, supplying many important resources to the rest of the Empire.

That might itself play into her hands, another weapon against the holdouts of the Stormqueen’s faction, but it was a treacherous course she flew. It would do no good to take power over a ruined and broken Empire.

Ramhorn was also the seat of Lady Tanit, granted her by Lady Ventora as reward for her good service. If the region should fall, not to invasion but rebellion, it would be a grave blow not only to Lady Tanit’s reputation, but to that of the whole of their faction. If so key a supporter should lose her domain entirely it would prove to all at court that Ventora’s followers were nothing but bluster.

Worse still was the source of the uprising. It would have been one thing if the lesser nobles or the mostly defunct former ruling family had tried to seize control. Such struggles for dominion were not unheard of, and while the perpetrators would be punished, leniency was possible so long as both sides maintained the faith with the Empress and Empire.

But this was something far worse.

The revolt came not from disgruntled nobles, but their subjects.

After the latest attacks by the Pharyes, the ogres and low-born harpies of Ramhorn had united. The laborers were refusing to work and the guards were refusing to punish them!

With their initial success the lesser species and the rural villages were now joining them – the whole region was now out of control.

Most disturbing of all, the rebels had not even tried to negotiate with the nobility.

They might have been expected to try to leverage their sudden, ill-earned power into concessions from their rulers – extra shares of luxuries, or better housing – but instead they had made only one statement.

In light of the inability of the Empire to protect them, they made a declaration of independence!

Thessaly could have screamed when she heard the news. All her desperate efforts to protect her people were being risked by ignorant fools, flouting the divine will of the Goddess for their own selfish ends.

Such a matter would be easily dealt with once Thessaly took the throne, but if the fervor were to spread throughout the Empire before that could happen, what throne would even remain to her?

At times like these Thessaly felt terribly small, despite her size.

She gripped her shoulders, wings wrapping tightly around her as she steadied her shaking. She reminded herself that the Valkyries were still loyal – should it come to that, they could be sent to break up the insurrectionists.

That might not prove necessary. These fears always seemed greatest in the quiet, lonely times of rest, but the uprising was a matter for the afternoon, one the court would work together to put down.

In the mean time, with the heat of the mid-day sun keeping the rest of the Eyrie asleep, the best that the priestess could do was sleep. A good siesta would leave her better able to care for and protect her people.

She had faced worse than this revolt, and would face worse still in the coming days.

But her feathers were still ruffling, her tail still twitching anxiously. Despite her resolution to rest, something was stirring in her subconscious, more awake than ever.

Nothing in her simple room had woken her, but something had happened – she was sure of it now. Somewhere, far away, she felt something, faint yet unmistakable, even through the many miles of mountain and layers of the world beneath her.

It grew, the energy unmistakable now. The familiarity made her scales tighten.

As she had so many times, Thessaly saw the figure of the dead human. She felt the dread and woe as a golden altar crumbled and black taint consumed all around it.

Yet the waking vision passed and the menacing power remained. It was no prophecy now; it was with her in reality.

If the vision came to pass it would be the end of everything.

Thessaly clasped her hands in prayer, but the words faltered on her lips. In broken fragments she implored Nemoi to grant her strength, to protect her and her people, to grant salvation to the Harpies.

All the while the power in the deep grew. Energies roiled and concentrated into an abyssal tempest, like a wound in the weave of fate. The fabric of creation quivered, and all around she felt the threads of destiny tearing, creation itself screaming in pain so overwhelming she thought she must surely lose her mind.

The ultimate release shook even the great Skycrown, a shockwave of essence flashing out. Yet no doom came with it. The great energies subsided, then vanished as though they were never there.

For a moment Thessaly dared hope that some great crisis had been averted.

But she knew better. The Goddess did not sent visions of annihilation casually. Whatever this disturbance had been and however it might be connected, the true threat was not gone. It would never be gone while the Harpies were weak and divided, while the highborn shirked their duties and bent to the wills of the smallfolk and lesser species.

The Stormqueen had betrayed her people. Worse, she had betrayed the Divine Sky herself. The Goddess had appointed the line of Zephyrus to watch over all harpies, yet in the time of their greatest need she had abandoned her throne and forsaken her most sacred vows.

Rising from her bed on shaking legs, the priestess made for the stairs up to the temple. She had to find with Ventora and the other loyalists. Those who were still delaying, still of uncertain loyalties, could no longer we waited upon.

Thessaly would do whatever it took to protect her people, even if it meant ending the royal lineage.

~~~

“You alright?” asked Chione.

The young harpy cocked her head to match the tilt of Shukra’s, her short red hair bobbing.

Shukra ignored her. The witch laureate had sensed something and it demanded her full attention.

“Give her time, Chione,” Agytha suggested quietly. “I know that we’re asking a lot.”

The three had met in secret, gathering in a store-room beneath the library during the mid-day resting hours for their scheming. The two handmaidens had meant to induct Shukra into their absurd plot, their resistance of the smallfolk against the highborn nobles who meant to usurp the throne.

Shukra was to use her magic to send messages and coordinate the other conspirators, although she had no idea how many that was. Apparently she would have a key role.

It sounded awful; a lot of lying to people and having long conversations about treason, the slightest whisper of which would bring the nobles down upon them like a storm. Even if the plan went well, Shukra doubted they could succeed when the time came. Defying the nobles was hopeless. The plan was impossible.

Shukra had been about to refuse them, to send them back and warn them not to talk to her about their scheme again, when suddenly she had sensed something occurring.

It was terribly faint and distant, but after so many hours together, studying and practicing magic, she would have known the unique essence of her student anywhere.

“Alright, come on, Shukra, you gotta help us,” Chione insisted, her voice raising despite the need for secrecy.

Dense as Chione was, it was a wonder that the girl hadn’t noticed the huge power rising up beneath them.

“Even if you ain’t gonna do it ‘cause it’s right, do it for the Queen!”

“Quiet,” Shukra replied.

“Oh come on, there’s no-one up here but us! You just wanna get out of answering!”

“Stop talking. Feel.”

Agytha was quicker on the uptake, but soon neither girl could miss the radiant essence streaming from beneath the mountains.

With a tectonic shock a spell completed. Something beyond her imagination, beyond even comprehension. Shukra felt the very structure of Arcadia fighting against the sorcerous work.

She felt the world lose.

There couldn’t be two beings with such inexhaustible essence, or such reckless, absurd will.

Safkhet was still alive!

Somehow she must have survived the fall at Grand Chasm, and even now be surviving within the Underworld. With her lived hope. Shukra was certain that the human would not abandon the war-struck Harpies. Even if it took weeks for the girl to crawl her way back up to the surface, she would. Safkhet was that stupidly stubborn. Idealistic and reckless in risking herself for people she hardly knew.

When the vibrations subsided Agytha was the first to speak. Her grey wings were pulled close, her tail curling in visible dismay.

“What… was that? It felt incredible, but I couldn’t even tell where it came from.”

Chione frowned, as though slowly computing a simple equation.

“Was that… magic?” she asked after a moment. “Felt kinda familiar.”

“I’m in.”

“What’s that, Shukra?”

“Insurrection. I’ll help.”