“You’re finally awake.”

The voice startled me, but the distantly familiar words were spoken all wrong, by a high, weak voice more like a child, and in a tongue that certainly wasn’t English.

Tension filled my body at the memory of the encounter with the Pharyes, in the wake of my desperate escape from Vitrgraf. That tension gave way to panic as I tried once more to sit up, to look around for the speaker, and once more nothing happened. I was totally immobilized.

For a moment I wondered if I was paralyzed in the wake of my many injuries, and my heart pounded painfully loud in my ears as I tried desperately to feel some movement from my body. Though I couldn’t change their angles, I could feel my limbs normally, and sensed muscles flex wherever I tried to bend them. There was no trace of pain from my countless wounds or burns, only that vague sense of weakness that comes with sleeping for too long.

My essence too was restored at last, the awful emptiness gone, replaced with the familiar pressure of latent internal energy, overflowing once more, as abundant as it ever had been. Perhaps more.

Yet I’d traded one debilitation for another; although everything felt recovered, my body still didn’t move at all.

The unseen speaker was entirely forgotten, as I instead recalled the horrible run-in with a Dweomer barrier, and my moments of desperation inside the throat of a giant magma-nightmare. As I had both times before, I tried to release mana, to shatter this trap too.

My energies responded, and I felt thick and heavy mana pushing out all around me, the volume growing steadily, but where barrier and magmare had lost the struggle, whatever bound me now held firm, unmoved by pure essence.

It was as though some intangible, non-magical force field were containing me, preventing even the minutest motion, in the manner I’d seen in sci-fi movies back on Earth. I was left suspended a short distance from the floor, only my head and part of my neck able to look about.

“J-just relax,” the voice said, sounding almost as panicked as I felt. “We had to restrain you, but that’s all! Just an, er, a precaution!”

It was a voice I’d heard before, in the mine, when I’d dropped Echo like a fool… and one of the Pharyes had found them, and taken them hostage….

I must have passed out after that.

My essence relaxed, back to the usual steady trickle. I couldn’t risk attempting escape if they still had Echo.

Bitterly I regretted my actions – my carelessness in letting my pain put Echo in danger, and my loss of focus and subsequent faint – but I tried to tell myself Echo would be fine. I’d surrendered to protect them, and as violent and cruel as the Pharyes had been, they had shown no desire to harm their captives.

“That’s… that’s better. Is that, uh, normal? I suppose it is….”

I jerked my head, the one part of me with any freedom to move craning my neck to look for the speaker. I heard the sound of a small creature stumbling back in alarm. Looking what was for me near vertically upwards, I caught sight of him.

What I saw was a spindly little figure with a gawkish manner, almost tripping over his own tiny shoes at my movement. They were tightly woven boots that resembled my own lost mushroom leather suit in material, but like the rest of his garb they had a more formal styling, reminiscent of military attire. His long-armed jacket made me think of a flight suit in particular. Split down the middle, it revealed a silken undershirt, and emblems at the shoulders reminded me of the signage I’d seen in Vitrgraf.

Inadequately filling out the squared shoulder-pads, the person standing before me was a match for the furnishings and tools I’d seen in the mine too; undoubtedly he was one of the Pharyes. One of the invaders who had struck Southtown and Grand Chasm.

After all the chaos and suffering they’d inflicted, and the terror he personally had subjected me to, it was a shock to see how much his species looked like miniature children, smaller yet with comparable proportions to a prepubescent human.

His boyish face was narrow, with protruding ruddy cheeks and a large, thick-lipped mouth, balanced out by the framing provided by a tumble of unkempt and poorly washed red hair which reached down to his shoulders. Judging by those details he could indeed have been a regular boy, of somewhat indeterminate age, but the long and crooked nose dispelled any illusions of his humanity – no child had a proboscis so protruding. It reminded me of classical depictions of goblins on Earth.

Human children also lacked transparent, glittering crystal teeth and nails, at least in my recollection. It had admittedly been some time since I last saw one.

Pierced by my glare he took another step back, then another. His thighs bumped into the metal crate behind him and he jumped, as if stirred from some reverie.

It was difficult to imagine that creatures like this, minuscule, flighty and anxious, had wrought such devastation to the Empire.

Or that they had so totally beaten me.

“Where is Echo? Are they alright?” I asked, unable to keep the hint of fear from my voice as I asked the question whose answer I dreaded to hear.

“Echo… is that the Dweomer device you swallowed?”

“I didn’t swallow them, I just didn’t have any other way to shield them! You try fighting dozens of berserk glass and fire monsters in the middle of a lake of magma, and you’ll have a tough time protecting anyone too! Anyway, you told me they’d be safe! Where are they, are they hurt?!”

The pharyes’ expression was doubtful at that, but he did at least answer my question.

“I kept my word, we haven’t hurt anyone. There was, uh, only one cube, but it is safe too… as long as you don’t try to cast any spells, or break out. I’m sorry, but we can’t take any chances, after you, well, attacked us. And killed those Kajatora. Not that we mind that of course…. Killing them I mean! Not the attacking us part….”

Straining my neck as best I could, I could see that I was encased in what must be many tons of metal, a solid block that must have somehow been shaped around me, only my head sticking out near the base.

I had no idea how they did it, but the great weight had me immobilized, sprawling on my front, limbs and even digits splayed out, unable to move so much as a finger. I was as helpless as I’d been in Myr’s grasp, so long ago.

Perhaps if I strained hard enough, and called on all my superhuman strength – or magic – that might be different, but the Pharyes were unlikely to just sit around and watch me breaking loose. Even if they couldn’t stop me, they had Echo as their hostage.

I groaned miserably, with a sense of profound defeat.

“As long as you don’t hurt Echo… the cube… I’ll do what you want.”

A few moments passed in silence.

“So… uh… I’m Ivaldi,” he said, holding out his palms flat and upright before me.

His bumbling, talkative manner might have been charming, or at least endearing, if not for the circumstances.

As it was an unimpressed, stony look was all the reply I had for him.

He continued with his valiant attempt at amiability.

“And… I believe you are Safkhet, yes? You, er, did a lot of damage at Grand Chasm. But it’s still good to meet you, you know? I mean, I hope it will be. Good to meet that is. For you as well!”

The use of my name was disconcerting, as if we were somehow familiar already. I certainly didn’t recall giving it to the enemies at Grand Chasm. It was possible I had, and it simply slipped my mind, amid all the almost dying and falling to my doom, but it was hard to imagine when it could have come up.

“I don’t remember giving you my name, and this doesn’t feel like a particularly auspicious meeting to me,” I said coldly. “The last time I saw your people you were destroying Grand Chasm in a totally unprovoked attack. I’d barely escaped the mess you put me in when I ran into you again in Vitrgraf, and now you have me trapped and helpless. And I only have your word for it that Echo is safe too…. As far as I’m concerned, your people and our meeting are another curse.”

The glare I gave him as I spoke made clear my contempt for his pleasantries, but I hadn’t expected him to shy away so viscerally, a shiver running through his small form.

“Ah! I meant no… r-rudeness! A-as I say, you are… are unharmed, you and your cube b-both, I promise!” he answered, his voice trembling.

For a moment I thought he was going to cry.

The sight was so incongruous with the enemy I’d imagined that it entirely stalled my building anger. Telling off this ‘Ivaldi’ just felt like bullying a child.

A child who had been willing to threaten to kill Echo, I reminded myself.

But I wouldn’t get out of this mess by shouting, and even if I could somehow work my way free of the metal prison, they still had Echo to hold hostage again.

“I want to see Echo. I need to make sure they’re not… damaged,” was what I finally said.

Ivaldi looked relieved, and nodded.

Apparently a nod to him had the same meaning it did to me, for while he made no motion to actually go collect my friend, a huge door hissed slowly open a moment later, totally unprompted.

It led into the next cargo compartment. Inside were half a dozen of the hydraulic combat suits I’d seen at the mine, and Grand Chasm before. I strained against the metal weight crushing me as I saw the delicate shimmer of Echo’s body, held with a disgustingly casual grip in the hands of the lead machine.

“Put them down!”

My voice filled the room, and Ivaldi recoiled, as though struck.

The war machines reacted in a moment, limbs hissing, blades and gemstones leveled at the helpless living spell and I.

“We shall be the ones to give orders,” spoke a second voice.

It too was childlike, but deeper, with a stern tone.

“If you attempt escape you will be destroyed along with this device,” it declared.

The blade of the figure holding Echo inched closer to their vulnerable surface.

“Stop!” Ivaldi shouted.

I was startled to realize he was addressing the others, and the unseen voice.

“We have her word, Lord Uldmar, and we gave ours!”

He turned back to me. Sweat was beading on his face and his raised hand was shaking, but even so there was a look of determination in his eyes.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“I told you, we won’t… damage this… echo… so long as you don’t try to escape. I swear on my own life, and the lives of my house, your echo won’t be damaged in any way.”

Those eyes had a clear, glittering depth, twin diamonds that seemed devoid of deceit.

It wasn’t as though I had much of a choice in the matter.

I couldn’t see the other speaker, but I’d felt mana resonating along with the words, coming from a gemstone embedded in the wall. Some sort of intercom, presumably allowing him to listen in on us. There was a lot I wanted to say in response to him, but I swallowed my anger as I looked up at Echo. They had trusted themselves to me. Now wasn’t the time to indulge in anger or recriminations for the Pharyes’ transgressions.

Defeated and powerless, I slumped once more in my restraint, strength leaving my body. The metal weight gave a low thud as it dropped a tenth of an inch, all I’d managed to lift it with my shoulders.

Ivaldi sighed in turn, looking once more a child, totally out of his depth.

The other voice was silent.

A few seconds later the door hissed closed once more, hiding away Echo and the guards, leaving the two of us alone – but still overheard.

“What are you going to do with us?”

“Oh, don’t worry, no-one’s going to hurt you or anything like that. I-I mean we’re not savages like the Formorians. You’re being taken to one of our fortresses, Northastr. We have facilities there to hold prisoners taken during the war.”

His expression brightened as if a pleasant thought came to him.

“S-so you’ll actually be with your own people! Well… not your species, but, other surfacers.”

“Yeah, in a prison camp, trapped in a giant metal block, with Echo as a hostage in case I so much as try to scratch my nose,” I responded.

Ivaldi didn’t seem to have an answer for that.

The prisoners did at least explain how Ivaldi seemed to know so much about me. They must have had hundreds, perhaps thousands of captives to interrogate and terrify into telling them all about the surface world and its people, myself included. That made it all the worse that I knew so terribly little about him.

“You’re pharyes, right?” I spoke after a few moments.

He gave a short, cautious nod.

“Just what are you? Do you live beneath the Underworld?”

My resentment had to be transparent, as he hesitated to answer me. When he did I detected what seemed to be a note of wonder blending with the dismay of his expression, but it could just have been a cultural difference.

“Our kingdom lies in the depths of the Underworld, far below the upper strata your kind may have explored, uh, but above the magma table naturally – it’s no wonder the Harpies have no idea who or what we are. We actually used to have close contact with the Dweomer you know, at least, as close as they would allow, but after The Fall things were very different…. Oh, er, as for what I am, or we are that is, well, I should say, we’re Pharoid, the same as you are. Admittedly your nails and teeth are very dull, much lower mineral content I imagine… and of course there’s the size difference, but otherwise we’re really very similar you know, even if your species has almost no nose and more bulbous torsos and legs.”

Catching my unimpressed look, he cleared his throat anxiously.

“Ahem, a-as for we Pharyes, I suppose you could say that we’re distantly related to the Dweomer, or so it’s theorized. The Braga don’t really agree on that, but I think they take some, well, artistic liberties with the histories they tell....”

“If you’re from that far down why are you invading the surface? Why did you attack the Empire?”

His look was more curious than ever, but he didn’t answer.

“You admit that the Harpies have never had the slightest contact with your people, so they can’t possibly have done anything to provoke a war!”

An expression of guilt overtook his youthful features, but it only pained and infuriated me to see it.

“Can’t you even give me a reason?! What have they ever done to you? What could the people of Southtown or Grand Chasm possibly have done to deserve being forced from their homes, seeing them burnt and destroyed, or being captured and enslaved, even murdered in their own towns?! Why are you doing this?! Is this all because of me?! Did Myr- did I do this?!”

I felt the tingling of moisture welling up around my eyes, and a tightness in my chest that was nothing to do with the metal block pinning me.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I-”

“We fight in the name of His Majesty King Jotunn Aldagautr, Monarch of all Pharyes, and in the interests of our people,” spoke the other voice, before Ivaldi could say more. “You have no need of knowing anything more.”

Ivaldi looked over at the supernatural transmitter with a conflicted expression that I couldn’t read.

“It is… as Lord Uldmar says,” Ivaldi confirmed weakly. “I am… sorry that it has come to this, but… I must ask you some questions.”

“I don’t know anything about the Empire’s defenses, and even if I did I wouldn’t tell you,” I replied simply.

“Y-yes, I suppose you probably wouldn’t… or you could just lie after all…. But that’s not it. There’s… so much you can tell us, about yourself, and where you’ve been and what you’ve done, so much I don’t understand,” there was a glow in his eyes as he spoke now, a passion, even a hunger.

“Why should I help you?” I asked, conscious of the petulant tone in my voice.

“Well, uh, you do want to get news of the war, don’t you?” he suggested. “If you’re cooperative, I can have some limited reports brought to you.”

The expression on my features made clear he had me there, even if I didn’t answer.

“And… well… the more we talk, the more we may be able to, uh, to understand each other. Perhaps even… find a way to end the fighting? To spare all our people any further suffering….”

Once more I was struck by the sincerity on the little man’s face.

There was also Echo’s safety to consider, so I couldn’t just tell him to mind his own business, despite the risks in telling them anything about what really happened to me.

“Fine,” I said, giving him a weak nod. “Ask me your questions, Ivaldi. I’ll tell you what I can.”

His face lit up.

“Thank you, really, there are so many things I’m just desperate to know you see. It shouldn’t even be possible… a-any of this that is. Surviving the battle and the fall at Grand Chasm, or slaying kajatora, or recovering from those awful wounds…. Nothing makes sense. Just what exactly are you?!”

“I’m a human. From the surface.”

He shook his head.

“I’ve investigated all the data, and no human could do those things. No human would fight for the Harpy Empire either. We have… er… questioned captives, taken during the battles on the surface, and they have confirmed that you are nothing like a human. This mana alone is… monstrous….”

I glared at him with dull irritation. It was hard to get up in arms defending my humanity after everything else the Pharyes had said and done to me. In particular pinning me under a giant block of metal.

Amnesia also seemed like a poor answer at this point.

“I’m from place that’s a lot harder to live, without any naturally occurring mana. The environment made my people naturally tough, and I guess it means we have a lot more mana than normal once we actually develop it. But I was born to an ordinary human man and woman same as everyone else I knew.”

“So… you left because of the harsh environment?” Ivaldi asked, looking unconvinced.

“No…. I guess you could say I got abducted. I still don’t really understand what happened, or remember a lot of it, but I can’t get back there anymore. But the Stormqueen found me and saved me, and then the Harpies took me in. The Cyclopean Bones are my home now.”

“W-well assuming that were to be true,” Ivaldi replied.

In other words, he didn’t believe a word of it.

“…how can you even speak Pharynx to begin with? Our people have had no relations with other species since The Fall of the Dweomer. Could it be that you are connected to them somehow? Is that how you came to possess your echo?”

It was my turn to hesitate, caught unprepared by another, even more dangerous question

“No….”

I could have told them about Myr, about Earth and my true history, but I doubted they’d believe such an absurd story, even if I was willing to risk divulging it to them.

“I don’t really understand how I know your language, but I don’t think it had anything to do with the Dweomer. I was exposed to some sort of supernatural force or magic when I was… taken. If you want to know more you’d have to find whoever was responsible, because it was their power that did this to me. All I know is that ever since I’ve been able to speak the language of every species I met.”

It was the best response I felt safe giving him.

He seemed to ponder that with a doubtful expression, as if trying to imagine just how a spell could have taught me his and every other tongue.

“How were you exposed to this… magic?”

“I’m not sure. It was dark and I never saw the face of the one who did it.”

“Was that… incident connected to your echo, or to this ‘myr’?” Ivaldi queried.

I had hoped he missed my momentary indiscretion in naming aloud my arch-enemy to them, my greatest mortal foes.

At least he didn’t seem to recognize the evil god’s name.

“I told you, this was before I met the Harpies. Before you invaded and I fell into the Underworld.”

Ivaldi seemed torn on what to ask me next.

“What happened after you fell?” he said, after a brief internal struggle.

“I landed.”

“Yes, well, after that I mean.”

“Nothing too remarkable. I got attacked by some Formorians, I met some Mycoth traders who gave me a new outfit… but that’s gone too now….”

He waited patiently as I recalled my leather suit and mourned its loss to the magma and the ‘kajatora’. It seemed if anything that Myr had cursed me with perpetual nudity.

“Anyway, I entered the Dweomer ruins to try to find a route up to the surface. That was where I found Echo. Unfortunately things went wrong, and we ended up getting attacked by monsters.”

“The kajatora you destroyed?” Ivaldi asked.

“Exactly,” I lied. “So we ended up escaping through bubbles in the rock, and I found my way out through what turned out to be your mine. You know the rest.”

“You must have seen the shockwave a few wheels back then,” he said, sounding skeptical. “The entirety of the Underworld trembled from the power of it.”

“Shockwave?” I asked.

I had no idea how long a wheel was. My first thought was that the collapsing chamber had caused an earthquake, but that could hardly have shaken the entire Underworld. Perhaps something else had happened while I was inside the Sepulchre?

The look of confusion on my face was so genuine that even he seemed convinced of my ignorance.

“You must have felt something,” he insisted. “The release of essence was vast, beyond anything we’ve ever detected before. It was that signal which brought us to Vitrgraf!”

Something must have changed in my expression as the description clicked, because he brightened.

“So you did sense it!”

It could only have been the power of the Sepulchre itself.

I wondered just how far away it had been detected, but I definitely wasn’t going to start telling the Pharyes about a divine sub-dimension that held together the fabric of reality. I doubted they were any wiser than the Dweomer after all.

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“Maybe? There hasn’t been anything like this in ten thousand years! Anyone who sensed it couldn’t fail to be sure!”

“Well I ‘sensed’ a lot of stuff while I was down there, earthquakes, collapses, magma trying to drown me, enraged obsidian dragons spitting plasma lances made of knives in my face… I was a little distracted!”

Ivaldi shied away at my renewed irritation.

“B-but you… I mean, uh, I’m sorry, it just, well, it looked like you remembered something,” he said weakly.

It was my turn to act sheepish, in the hopes it might divert his questions. I was well aware that I was a poor enough liar that I couldn’t count on fooling him entirely. I’d already given away that I knew something after all.

“Uh… well actually, I was confused about something else you said. This signal brought you to the mine, right? Were your people aware of… what it’s like inside there?”

It was his turn to reveal himself, through the ghastly expression which came over his delicate face.

“Vitrgraf mine was… evacuated after an accident, thought to be caused by seismic activity in the area,” he said carefully. “It was very sudden; magma flooded in, and, well, no-one who was on duty inside at the time made it out alive…. We still don’t know a lot about what happened, only speculation and… fragmentary reports…. But perhaps you can tell us more?”

Something in his voice made me think he knew something, as did the emphasis on the phrase ‘on duty’, yet there was an eagerness for more too.

“It’s true that a lot of the mine was flooded,” I confirmed. “But not all of it. I passed through chambers where the cooling systems were still working and keeping the magma out. Until the kajatora attacked anyway. Something else happened in there, before your containment system failed.”

“What was that?” he asked breathlessly.

I wasn’t sure if I should tell him – it was probably long gone, but for all I knew the Pharyes might start trying to weaponize any traces of the black oil, or try to harvest more of it for further research – but something in his face, in the fear and worry written in his features, made me doubt that they would, even if they could retrieve a sample from beneath the magma lake.

“Something happened to the miners inside.”

Even within my hot, tight prison of metal, I felt a chill at the memory, a shiver running down my spine, along with a renewed urge to get loose. I could imagine the sensation of the horrendous ichor trickling down my spine, yet I couldn’t reach up to prove to myself it wasn’t.

“They were… dead, but… still moving.”

As I spoke I looked him in the eye. I expected to see shock, disbelief, even amusement at a perceived fabrication. What I saw instead was the creeping dread of an outlandish fear confirmed.

“Something had contaminated the mine and corrupted their bodies. It was terrible. They had… come apart… but the broken… pieces… kept going….”

“Could you tell anything more about what happened?” Ivaldi asked, his voice little more than a whisper.

I shook my head.

“Some sort of black, oily substance was everywhere, but it was destroyed when the kajatora broke into the mine, burnt away by the magma. At least… I hope it was.”

Ivaldi and I were silent for a moment, the air heavy between us. He looked like he was deep in thought.

“How did you avoid being… affected yourself?”

“I didn’t touch any of the bodies. I wasn’t in there for long either – I was running for my life.”

“How did you… survive the kajatora? Did ‘echo’ help you? Is it some sort of weapon?”

“What? No, Echo’s not a weapon, they’re a person!”

He looked more confused than ever.

“Is this some… misunderstanding in Pharynx? Does your native tongue work quite differently?” he posited.

“No,” I said sternly. “Echo is a person.”

“But ‘echo’ is the Dweomer-made cube, no?”

“That’s Echo’s body, but they’re not just some ‘cube’, they’re a sentient being. They’re also a good person, who trusted me to protect them… so don’t you dare let any harm come to them while I’m in here.”

It seemed, despite his clear skepticism, that something in my earnest, only mildly threatening plea, had impressed itself upon him, for Ivaldi gave a nod.

“I promised you I would take care of… them. So I will do.”

My murmured thanks were drowned out as the intercom spoke up sharply.

“Ivaldi, that will be enough for now, come back.”

Ivaldi seemed oddly relieved to be recalled. The nervous Pharyes interrogator was singularly ill-suited to his task in my mind. He almost tripped over his own feet as he retreated.

He did spare me a long look back over his shoulder however, a thoughtful and searching one which seemed not at all the look of an enemy or a captor.

~~~

Reaching the control room, Ivaldi crumpled into the nearest chair, releasing a long sigh. The action earned him a strange look from several of the crew, and a tolerant smile from the captain, whose seat the aulogemscire had taken.

“Was it that bad in there?” Beyla asked.

“I could feel my… my bones shaking. Vibrating. I-I thought I was going to shatter when she… tried to break free.”

The Pharyes were not a species with a fine sensitivity to mana. Ivaldi himself was as aware of that as anyone – the detection systems aboard Pharyes vehicles were works of aulogemscis after all, one of the many ways in which his people augmented their natural capabilities with the supernatural capabilities of gemstones.

Thanks to the designs his predecessors and colleagues had created, and which he had helped perfect, they could detect the mana of hostile monsters weaving magic through multiple miles of tunnels, or the resonance of a gemstone core as a Skidbladnir or crawler powered up.

But Ivaldi had needed no inscribed gemstones or elaborate focusing crystals to feel the power radiating out from the ‘human’ girl in the hold as she had woken, or the second surge at the sight of her ‘friend’ imperiled. In the moment as she shouted, and her mana spiked, Ivaldi had been sure it was some dread spell of the surface she was preparing.

With a shaking hand he wiped the sweat from his brow, and felt the hair sticking to his forehead.

He could have done with bathing, but even if there were time, he found the recycled water of the crawler distasteful, safe though he knew it to be. If only he were back in his warren, safe in the most secure depths, with a private bathing chamber all to himself….

At home he never had to fear for his life as he felt his bones shake inside his body.

“Humans are scary,” he murmured to no-one in particular.

“This is folly, Ivaldi,” Uldmar declared. “Even you cannot be so foolish as to believe her tale. It was lies and half-truths at best. Much I’m sure to be outright fabrication – this creature is no human. It may even be some ancient monster in disguise. A horror from beneath the world which preys on kajatora.”

Shaken and soaked as he was, Ivaldi shook his head resolutely at that.

“I-I’m sorry Lord Uldmar, but, uh, I don’t think it’s foolish to listen to what she has to say. I don’t know what she is exactly, and, well, her story is certainly dubious, but I don’t think she’s a monster. In fact, I’m sure she believes she’s human. I don’t believe everything else she told me was a lie either.”

“Surely you are playing some jest, Counselor,” Hlesey gasped. “Are you not a man of aulogemscis? The very chief and advisor to our great kingdom? Or do you truly endorse this fanciful mush? Are we to believe that the dead stir even now beneath Vitrgraf?!”

Ivaldi opened his mouth to defend himself, but he found Uldmar spoke first.

“Lord Hlesey,” he said coolly, “the Chief Aulogemscire is many things, but he is not a… complete imbecile.”

Hlesey looked almost as surprised as Ivaldi felt at that.

He wondered if Uldmar would still have paid him the backhanded compliment, had he known that the topic of Vitrgraf was one of the few things Ivaldi was certain Safkhet had told the truth about.

It would have been better if she had lied, he thought. Her words were too close to the chilling story of the lone survivor, the smuggler he tracked down and interviewed. With no possible way Safkhet could have known of that tale, it had become impossible to dismiss the two independent verifications.

But what then did that mean for Vitrgraf mine, and the Pharyes people? What unspeakable power could do… that… to living beings.

“We have to know more,” he said quietly. “I should go back in.”

Lord Uldmar stopped him as he tried to stand. He seemed to misinterpret his dismay.

“I suggest you retire to your cabin, Ivaldi,” he said, with what could almost have been a kind note to his hard voice. “There will be no need for further interrogation during the journey. The rest can wait until we reach Northastr.”

Ivaldi stared at him, baffled.

“You said it yourself; the mana the prisoner released while you were talking was immense. The task is too dangerous for you, and for us. We shall leave it others, better suited and equipped for the work.”

“But there’s so much we need to know! I can get her to tell me more, I’m sure of it!”

“We didn’t pull you out just so you could sit and recover, Counselor,” Captain Beyla said, sternly. “The beacon showed a response while you were in there talking, just after she released all that mana. It was only for a moment, but we picked up another signal out there. It could be a crawler, powering up additional cores – too far off to tell right now – but analysis suggests they were accelerating towards us.”

“Another crawler here, in the exclusion zone?” he asked, dumbly. “Could they be lost?”

Beyla shrugged.

“We don’t know. If it is a crawler they’re either out of voice range, or not answering. Could just be a team dispatched from Northastr about the same business as us - investigating the shockwave by checking the instruments left behind at Vitrgraf – but it could be something else entirely. Whatever it is, they won’t have missed that little outburst from your friend in the hold, so until we know it’s a friendly let’s not provoke our passenger into any more venting.”

“Get some rest, Ivaldi,” Uldmar ordered, the lord and captain united in thwarting his wishes. “The prisoner is no longer your responsibility.”

With that he found himself being walked back to his cabin by Hylli, her hand insistently guiding him by the arm.