Space aboard a crawler was precious and trips between settlements were always dangerous, so to maximize cargo space and speed the crew was generally expected to sleep in fold-out bunks. When transporting important passengers dedicated modules could be connected to allow each to enjoy compact but private cabins, however even these were far smaller than the bedroom Ivaldi was accustomed to at home in the family warren.

The room felt smaller still now he was forbidden to leave it.

Ivaldi had a newfound sympathy for what Safkhet was going through – he at least had the freedom to scratch his nose, or to move his body around between the fold-out desk chair and the bed when it all felt too much to bear.

Laying on the uncomfortable bed he stared up at the panels and lighting gems of the ceiling. If only the chair were detachable from the wall he could have reached the panels up there, and perhaps even pried one loose. Then he could….

Do nothing.

He had no tools, nothing which could even pass for a tool, beyond his own nails – and what an agony it would be to shatter one in a futile attempt at escape.

If only, he thought once more. If only he’d been a little faster. If only the formorians hadn’t chosen that precise moment for their absurd and suicidal attack. If only Uldmar had gone to see the captain instead of checking up on Safkhet in person.

Caught leaving the cargo hold with a food cart Ivaldi had been totally exposed – and the mindless fools on watch had caved immediately on seeing the fury on Uldmar’s otherwise handsome features.

After that it was Ivaldi’s turn to be interrogated.

So much for Safkhet’s idea of winning Uldmar over as an ally! The man had barely listened to a word the aulogemscire said, and the accusations against his uncle had only incensed him. Ivaldi had the split lip to prove it, and he suspected he’d come close to cracking a tooth.

He slammed his fist down on the side of the bed with cry.

The following minutes nursing his agonized hand were a short distraction before he returned to the greater woe of his failure.

Spying and lying were never his depth, but his sister had seldom paid much attention to what Ivaldi wanted…. But it did no good to blame her or Reginn either.

His failure was his own fault, for thinking Uldmar could be convinced to turn on his own uncle, or even that the man could ever believe that the Justicar was a traitor at all. And indeed, for risking the whole plan on so careless a scheme as sneaking in while Uldmar slept. Reginn would have been able to come up with something far more cunning.

He had feared that he wouldn’t get another chance to speak to Safkhet if she was imprisoned at Northastr, but now he would be joining her in chains.

Perhaps they’d squish him inside a block of lead too, he thought morosely. Unlike Safkhet he would simply be pulped in the process. A suitable end for a dismal failure….

He only hoped that Reginn and Ingeborg would be able to escape similar consequences, and carry on the plan without him somehow.

Safkhet knew far more than Uldmar could have dreamed, and Ivaldi had at least managed to conceal just how much information the two had shared. Perhaps if Reginn could arrange to meet with her she might realize the opportunity, and fill him in….

~~~

“It can’t be,” Heba said simply.

Her voice was transmitted from another compartment of the golem, but the skeptical tone had survived the translation from sound into magic and back again.

“It is! Safkhet’s alive!” Berenike declared.

Her feathers were rustling excitedly and her tail twitched with a girlish delight that was quite incongruous in the middle-aged, hardened warrior.

“This is amazing,” Gastores said, beaming. “We couldn’t ask for better luck!”

“Safkhet the Stormqueen’s girlfriend?” Patch asked.

She wore a derisive sneer on the protruding lips of her short snout.

“As if she’d be down here. Royalty don’t fool about in gods-forsaken caves.”

“She’s not actually royal you know. And she showed up at Chasm, before she fell I mean,” Plades pointed out.

“Dead almost royalty don’t fool about down here neither,” the huntress answered.

Gastores couldn’t deny she had a point, and he felt rather crestfallen at the idea, but even so he trusted Captain Berenike and the senses of the harpies. They were skilled in feeling and interpreting mana, even if not so skilled as Sulis, and they knew Safkhet personally.

“I’m telling you it’s her – I carried the girl all the way to Chasm in my own hands, I know the feel of her mana,” insisted Berenike. “And who else do you think could spew out this much? The Stormqueen herself?”

“The Captain’s right,” Nefret said, sounding as though she really didn’t believe it herself. “I’ve never felt mana like hers anywhere before. The signal we’re tracking had to be Safkhet.”

“No-one found her body. Perhaps she was kidnapped along with the others,” Gastores ventured.

“More likely carried away by another underground river I’d say,” Berenike suggested. “The damn things are everywhere, and I don’t see why the enemy would have dragged her all the way down here otherwise.”

“What if this is where they originally came from?” Gastores asked, his long brow rippled as he pondered the mystery. “The awatora said they were from somewhere deeper.”

There came the lyrical tones of Sulis through the gemstone communication system.

“I don’t think they live this far down. The route the golem was set to follow doesn’t go anywhere near this deep, and the pictures it remembered for me don’t show anything from this level. They’re of areas higher up, mostly south of here. This machine also isn’t suited to areas flooded with lava.”

Gastores found himself smiling, despite having his theory washed out so comprehensively. Even if it hadn’t allowed him to hear her voice, Sulis’ evidence would still have been encouraging.

“So that means Safkhet’s safe, or at least alive and full of mana, and she’s free and trying to get back to the surface,” he said brightly.

“Sorry Gastores… I’m not sure that’s true either.”

“What do you mean?” Berenike asked the naiad.

“I’ve found some sort of sound stored in the golem. Seems we picked it up some time yesterday, coming from the same direction as this mana signal. It’s a lot weaker – I didn’t even notice it at first – and it doesn’t sound like a human.”

“What is it then?”

“Let me send it to your compartment,” Sulis suggested.

There was a pause, then a burst of distorted noise, and then a new speaker sounded out from the crystal. The voice was high and weak, like that of a tiny child, yet the syllables were severe and echoing, the reproduced tone a serious, even demanding one. The meaning was lost on the rescue party however; the words tumbled out in a language none could even recognize, let alone interpret, quite unlike anything heard on the surface.

“What’s that supposed to be then?” Ripides asked, in the silence which followed.

“The voice of the enemy,” Berenike said grimly. “It’s just like ones reported at Chasm, and we know that the creatures inside their war machines are tiny.”

Gastores understood her concern, but some of the others looked confused.

“If that is a message from the enemy then that means Safkhet’s in trouble after all. It’s not as though she’d join their side after they almost killed her in Chasm.”

Ripides nodded slowly at his explanation. “’Sides which, she’s sweet about the Stormqueen.”

“It seems to be from a machine similar to this one,” Sulis declared. “Looking closer at the other records of our golem’s observations I can see patterns similar to the mana we give off when we fire our weapons. Something like this walking machine was there recently, fighting.”

“But not fighting anymore, huh? That mean she’s caught?” Patch asked, sounding unimpressed.

“The signals are faint and intermittent, but they do seem to be moving with Safkhet.”

“I have faith in your judgment, Misss Sulis.”

The sibilant, refined voice came from Yadar. The green-scaled naga sat upon the coils of his tail in the corner of the chamber, stroking his chin with the elegantly-patterned tip.

“I believe that captive she must be. We would ssurely feel something if the lady Safkhet were embattled so near to uss, yet her essence remains placid…. Alasss, that we cannot interpret the words of her captorss….”

“Is there no possible way we can translate the message?” Nefret asked.

She looked no more hopeful than the others – without even knowing the name of the enemy, let alone anything of their tongue, it seemed an impossibility to make sense of their speech.

“I can imagine what they were saying well enough,” Berenike declared.

The others stared at her as she explained.

“If our golem can detect theirs, then they can detect us too – but they have no way to know who we are or what we’re doing here, so they call out to demand that we identify ourselves.”

“But we don’t speak their tongue,” Heba said, with a small sigh that just barely made it through the crystal.

“Even if we did we couldn’t fool them long,” Berenike replied, “our voices are wrong and we don’t know their customs.”

“We should just avoid them,” Plades suggested. “We can’t fight those golems they rode in… even Safkhet couldn’t win….”

“Chasm was different,” Gastores said quickly, “there were so many of them, and tripods and soldiers too, and she was all alone.”

“Sounds like she lost again this time though,” Plades retorted gloomily. “Or else Captain Berenike would feel them fighting.”

Gastores shook his head emphatically.

“That doesn’t mean we should avoid them. Safkhet may know what the shockwaves were too – I’m sure if anyone does it’s her – and we’ll need her if we’re going up against more enemies. Even if all we do is track them back to their lands, if we can bring her back to the surface it would be a huge help.”

“Kid’s right about that,” Berenike said firmly. “Safkhet may be soft as down, but she’s stupidly powerful.”

Nefret was quick to agree with that.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“That captain’s correct. If not for Lady Safkhet, Grand Chasm would have been a rout. We were on the verge of defeat, but she drew out the entire enemy force. While they were… fighting her we pushed them back from the Shards and secured our defenses. If only we’d been faster we might have been able to come to her aid too….”

Berenike and Nefret exchanged a sorrowful glance, understanding passing between the two women.

“Still got herself beat though,” Patch pointed out, her hardened heart unmoved by the emotion in the voices of the Valkyries. “Don’t see why we’d fare any better.”

“We won’t know the situation until we catch up to them,” Gastores pointed out. “If she still has her full strength like we think then she may just be waiting for the right opportunity to turn on them.”

Berenike jumped on that idea. “Exactly! The Safkhet I met wouldn’t give up when she still had this much fight left in her. It’s hard to say at this range, but it feels like she’s gotten stronger if anything. If she can solve some of the mysteries we’re dealing with, great, but we need her even if it’s just as a big dumb mass of mana and muscles.”

Gastores felt the joke a touch ironic coming from the muscular, magically potent Berenike, but he wasn’t about to disagree with the captain’s suggestion.

“We have the greatest advantage over our foes,” Yadar mused, sounding pleased despite his placid demeanor. “If the Lady Safkhet remains in sound health then we shall have little difficulty in locating them. We can choose the manner of our meeting.”

“That’s true,” Sulis said, “If their golem works as ours does then they shouldn’t be able to detect us easily.”

“What could give us away?” Berenike asked.

“Firing the weapons or powerful spells of our own would certainly reveal us. They might also pick up the gemstones that power the golem when they’re discharging large volumes essence.”

“Then we can’t run them down. We’ll need to get ahead of them – let them come to us.”

“Hold on, Captain,” Patch said, holding up a furred hand. “We’re here to scout, not start a battle we can’t win.”

Others in the compartment were nodding, voicing agreement. They were a minority, but not by many.

“Then help us think of a way to win it,” Gastores said firmly. “We came here to find our people, and to save them if we can. Safkhet’s one of our people – she fought for us, saved us – we have to do the same for her if we can.”

Patch grimaced as she saw the direction the meeting was taking.

“If you’re determined to do it then it’s gotta be a proper trap, not just an ambush.”

She gave an irritated growl at the many blank faces which met her proclamation.

“You don’t hunt a craghaunt by catchin’ it napping and spearin’ it. You gotta be smarter. Get the lay of the land and lay a real trap in the right place, something that’ll take it down before you ever show your ears.”

“How do we do that here?” Gastores asked. “I don’t think the enemy can fly away…. I hope not anyway.”

“Craghaunts only glide,” Patch corrected. “But that’s what we gotta figure out; how we can hit ‘em hard enough to make the attack a sure thing. Otherwise there’s no way we’re saving Safkhet.”

~~~

The Chief Aulogemscire had gone mad.

That was the only answer Lord Uldmar of House Hreidmar could accept for the man’s vile betrayal and abhorrent attack on the honor of his House.

They had departed the Deephold on a mission to aid the war; saving the precious heirloom weapons destroyed at Grand Chasm and uncovering all they could about the dread creature responsible, which was feared to yet survive.

Shockwaves from beneath the magma table had delayed and diverted them, and miracle of miracles, led them to the capture of the very beast.

It should have been a triumph, for Ivaldi more than anyone, and yet the aulogemscire had been swayed by the absurd tales of their captive, to the point of even aiding her in recovering her strength….

The mission had been Ivaldi’s own idea, had it not… and it had been he who concocted the idea of a diversion to Vitrgraf to ‘investigate’ the shockwave…. How much had the aulogemscire planned in advance? He claimed the shockwave was simply luck on his part, and certainly Ivaldi had little means of coordinating with the Harpies, but the man was more cunning than anyone had realized.

Once again Lord Uldmar asked himself if Ivaldi could somehow be in league with the surfacers, and with the monstrous Safkhet; if this entire mission been planned as the moment Ivaldi would betray his own people and join forces with their enemies.

It sounded absurd, but the alternative was ludicrous.

Naturally he knew that his uncle was not a popular man – head of a great house and leader of the Royal Council, the Justicar was a man who had never had time to waste on trivialities such as friendliness, or the social games of the nobility. He played the part when he must, and had taught Uldmar to do the same, but since his ascent to the position of Justicar he had thoroughly uprooted any opposition. Now, in King Jotunn’s old age, the Justicar ruled with the strength and force needed to preserve a kingdom against the many grave threats that ever encroached upon them.

That was only natural, for while King Jotunn had sired a number of heirs over his near two centuries, his fortunes had been as ill as those of his kingdom, and only one young princess would survive him.

The fate of the Pharyes rested in Hreidmar’s hands more than any other, and he had seen the strain, the toll the position took on his uncle. The Justicar was and always had been Uldmar’s model of the ideal lord, especially after the loss of his parents. He was a man of duty and honor, with the strength of will to make the hard choices and the loyalty to make sacrifices for the good of the kingdom.

It was ludicrous them to suggest that he could betray his king and his people for some petty power grab.

He raised his powder flute for a sniff.

The tourmaline from his family mine always soothed him, but anger surged again as he recalled the earnest, pleading face of Ivaldi.

He knew his uncle mistrusted the councilor, but he had thought Ivaldi better than that. Had the man not proven his character on that very journey?

Loathe as he was to admit it to anyone, Ivaldi had shamed even him, Lord Uldmar, when panic had overtaken reason in the frightful ruins of Vitrgraf.

Now wasn’t the time to addle his thoughts with snuff!

Tossing the flute aside in disgust, he threw it harder than he’d intended. The opulent metal tube slid off the desk and popped open against the wall of his cabin. It fell amid a blossoming plume of sparkling snuff.

Glaring at the spilled powder and upset flute he recalled the day his uncle had presented it to him. A simple gift, but one inscribed with the house runes. It had been a sign of Hreidmar’s great expectations for him.

Uldmar had been a boy then, but his parents had been dead several years already, while his uncle’s son had passed just that previous succession.

The message had not been lost on him, despite his age, and he had devoted himself ever since to the duty pressed upon him.

Neigh unprompted, the words his uncle had spoken to him before they departed came into his mind. It had been a wholly different meeting under wholly different circumstances, save one – both had taken place in his uncle’s study.

‘Take only those whose loyalties you are sure of. You must not allow the Chief Aulogemscire to come to any harm… or to stray from his mission in any manner. Such is the command of King Jotunn.’

So the Justicar had spoken, but of course the King had not actually been present. He never left the Deephold Palace.

When had he last seen the King with his own eyes, Uldmar wondered suddenly. It had been at least three sequences – a third of a year. It was longer still since anyone had seen the King alone, without his uncle’s presence.

“This will not stand,” he muttered to himself. “This insult against House Hreidmar must be thoroughly dealt with. Otherwise… people will start to believe that….”

Somehow he dared not speak the words aloud. He, Lord Uldmar, whose bravery and prowess would have seem him leading a unit of the Varangian Guard by now, were it not for his greater duties to his House, surely he could not be feeling fear at the artless lies of a traitorous charlatan. But then what was it?

The danger, he told himself, was that others on the Council might be swayed by Ivaldi’s deception. Ingeborg was a given, but he suspected General Reginn might well be fooled too, while others like Lady Aslaug or Lord Gulbrand would find the accusations implausible yet highly convenient.

No. He had to contain the lies there and then. Starting with whatever trick Ivaldi had concocted with the Vitrgraf data.

He peered at an inscribed crystal atop his desk. There was a hint of fear in his eyes.

It had to be a trick after all. If the data truly showed what Ivaldi claimed….

Lord Uldmar shook off that thought and snatched the object up.

He knew next to nothing of the working of aulogemscis, but even so he understood enough to know that the physical processes of collecting and imprinting information into a gemstone were immensely complex, and not easily falsified. Ivaldi had neither the time nor the tools to fabricate a record as elaborate as the one he had copied from the mine.

Uldmar would decipher the cryptic nonsense of runes recorded with it, and prove the counselor a liar.

He found Hylli in the crawler’s repair bay, still hard at work on his Gres-Jarn.

It pained him to see his Skidbladnir in pieces that way. It was one of the proud ancient weapons of House Hreidmar, entrusted to him by his uncle.

But the damage had been unavoidable, and would be remedied once they had access to the materials and supplies at Northastr. If anything he was lucky that the damage was no worse – if not for Ivaldi….

Hylli blanched as she saw the volcanic glare he turned upon her, the other aulogemscires and spyrja even backing away, but Uldmar ignored them all and held out the gem in his hand.

“I need you to decipher this for me. In a manner I can actually understand, not the inane technical babble of your chief. Do you understand?”

“Yes… Lord Uldmar, I-I’ll do my best,” the girl promised.

~~~

Of the multifarious torments and indignities which came from imprisonment prostrate under a gigantic metal cube, none tried me quite like the creeping prickle of an itch I was quite powerless to scratch.

Of emotional woes there were many more dire, such as wondering just how badly I’d ruined things with Ael, or if Ivaldi would succeed in his attempt to win over Uldmar. There was also ample fretting of the more aimless kind, about what perils Aellope and the others might be facing on the surface, from the Pharyes, and from their own kind, and what might become of me if I couldn’t find a way to escape captivity. But intrusive and fearful as they were, such thoughts could be resisted.

I was powerless to defy the sensation emanating from the small of my back.

The minute, near invisible body-hair which had burnt away in Vitrgraf seemed to have re-grown in just such a manner as to prickle at me there, and try as I might I couldn’t seem to move enough to do a thing about it. I could only wait and hope that it would pass.

After what I felt sure were many hours and saintly patience it did at last seem to fade, but still there was no news from Ivaldi.

The door to the cargo bay had remained sealed ever since his exit, with nothing but the rhythmic motion of the vehicle itself to confirm that there was anyone out there at all.

That was a problem, as I was beginning to realize that there was, in fact, a torture worse than an itch beyond scratching.

It was my own fault in a way, for so greedily consuming everything Ivaldi had brought me, without a single concern given to what the alien foods and drinks might do to my body.

Given the things on which I’d been forced to subsist, and the toxins I’d had to endure in the past, I had assumed myself beyond such petty fears, but superhuman though I was, I’d failed to reckon with the limitations of my biology.

I really needed to pee!

At first I tried to jiggle my body to hold it in, but where the itch had lessened in time, the sharp sensation I now suffered was only growing.

“Hello?” I called out. “Can anyone hear me? Guards!”

No response. It was hard to tell if there were even listening, but I reasoned they must be.

“Hey, guards! I need help here!”

I could feel some sort of reaction from the gemstone intercom on the wall, but no voice emerged.

“I guess no-one is listening,” I said loudly. “I’ll just have to break out of here, since there’s no-one about to help m-”

“What?!” demanded a voice, emerging from the gem.

“Ah, there you are. You had me worried.”

“If you try to escape your cube will be destroyed – and so will you! What do you want?!”

I glared at the vibrating crystal before replying.

“I need the restroom.”

“You need what?” the voice asked, settling somewhere between confusion and incredulity.

“I mean I have to go….”

“You can’t leave, we told you already!”

“Ugh, no! I mean I need the toilet! I have to go pee!”

I could feel myself blushing at the need to spell it out for them.

“Really?” the voice asked, sounding more dubious than ever.

“Yes! I’m only human, and I drank like a gallon of water and wine and stuff, so of course I have to pee! And don’t tell me I should have gone before we left, I hadn’t had any then! Besides which I was unconscious!”

There was silence for a few seconds after that. I could imagine whoever was listening in engaged in a fierce discussion of just what they were going to do.

“I’m your prisoner, so you can at least let me use whatever facilities you have. I’m not trying to escape, I just… I really need to go. You can shove me back in the cube after!”

“Assuming you’re telling the truth, you’ll have to wait until we reach Northastr,” a second voice declared. “Arrangements will be made for you there.”

“And how long will that be? I need to go now!”

The gem fell silent however, ignoring all further demands for assistance, no matter how I cajoled or protested my rights.

Hopefully my bladder would prove as superhuman as the rest of me.

~~~

Without a knott in his cabin, Ivaldi had only his own body to tell the time.

He wondered if that had been so for his ancient ancestors too, dwelling in the calm and placid depths far beneath the fearful surface world and its mercurial sunlight.

The invention of the malknottr, a device of sequential spinning pendulums colloquially named the ‘knott’, had brought structure to society. Even now, as aulogemscis worked all manner of wonders, they remained the traditional timekeepers of the Pharyes.

Smallest and fastest to turn, the rotation of the first wheel of the malknottr had given them their basic cycle of hours, one wheel.

Left to judge the time only from his hunger and thirst, Ivaldi suspected it was some time past wheelturn, just approaching the busy hours of dagmal when many awoke for a breakfast.

It was just as he was wondering whether anyone would think to bring him some that Ivaldi heard a sound from the voice crystal by the door.

“Chief? Are you alright?”

His heart leapt at the friendly sound of Hylli.

“I’m fine, you can come in… assuming Lord Uldmar permits it I suppose. Or else you’ll be imprisoned too next.”

He sounded bitter even to his own ear, and as the younger aulogemscire stepped inside with an anxious, guilty look on her face he felt a little ashamed for worrying her. Especially when he smelt the food she was carrying.

“I… thought you’d be hungry.”

She set the tray down on the table, and then turned to work the panel by the gemstone. Ivaldi couldn’t see what she was doing, but a moment later the door closed and locked shut. Apparently she really didn’t have permission.

“Thank you, Hylli,” he said, eyes on the hot soup rather than her face, “but you can just leave it here, you… well you won’t get arrested, but you still don’t want to get caught the way I did. Doing just the same thing too….”

“It’s not the same,” she said quickly, with surprising force. “I mean… you’re not the same as her, Safkhet. You’re one of us, a councilor and a brilliant, brave, and loyal aulogemscire – you aren’t an enemy of the kingdom or a spy or a traitor, no matter what Lord Uldmar says.”

Ivaldi swallowed a mouthful of soup and looked up at her, but said nothing. Not for the first time he was wondering what he’d done to deserve so loyal and dedicated an assistant.

“That’s why I know you had a good reason for sneaking in to see the prisoner, and for whatever you might have told her – or told Lord Uldmar about the Justicar.”

“You really believe that?” Ivaldi asked, staring down into the murky brown depths of the soup.

“Shouldn’t I?” she countered simply.

“Lord Uldmar ordered no-one go near Safkhet, then caught me sneaking in to see her, an enemy warrior, feeding her and exchanging information… and then I tried to convince him to believe her story and help me investigate his uncle.”

“Are you telling me Lord Uldmar is right about you? That you’ve betrayed us all?”

“No! I-I had to speak with her, I… I had no choice. I suppose that… I can’t expect you to understand – I hardly understand it all myself – but it was for the sake of, well, of everyone. I had to find out what she knew, for the good of our people.”

Ivaldi had expected skepticism, even derision, but there was a strange light in Hylli’s eye instead, earnest and hopeful, even proud.

“You really believe that the Justicar sabotaged Vitrgraf? Why would he do that?” she asked.

“If I’m right you’re better off not knowing. Especially if the Justicar decides there’s need of a second cover-up. You shouldn’t even know this much.”

She shook her head. “I’ve seen the data from the mine already. If they want to silence you they’ll have to silence me too!”

Audible over the background hum of the crawler there was a dull thud against the wall, from the next cabin over. Ivaldi grimaced at the thought that someone could have heard her even through the metal bulkheads, but the girl looked steadfast, with a resolution Ivaldi only wished he could have shared.

In the end he nodded, surrendering with a sigh.

Perhaps, even if he never had a chance to speak to Reginn or Ingeborg again, Hylli might. She could warn them, and help them prepare.

“You were always too clever, Hylli. I thought I had the only complete copy, but… I suppose not. If you’ve seen the data then you know that it proves the disaster was sabotage, and before we left the Deephold I found out that the Justicar’s people were there, at the site, before the disaster started.”

“That’s not what the official reports say.”

“No it isn’t,” he agreed. “They don’t talk about the contamination inside the mine either. Some sort of… outbreak….”

“A disease?”

“No, something else. It’s like some sort of corruption that twists and destroys everyone it touches. If Safkhet’s right then I think the mine was destroyed to stop it spreading.”

“But that’s absurd, Chief, how can you believe what that human says? She was trying to kill us a few wheels ago!”

“We attacked the surface unprovoked,” he reminded her firmly, “she was defending herself and her friends. She even surrendered to protect one of them.”

“The gemstone cube?” Hylli asked, unimpressed.

“It looks like an inscribed gem to us, but, I mean, how can you be so sure it’s not alive? We still can’t understand Dweomer artifice even now. And even if she’s mistaken, Safkhet was willing to be captured to protect it. Her story adds up too, even though it’s totally incredible. I mean, she’s totally incredible too, so how could her story be something ordinary?”

“So you think that she’s in the right and we should help her defeat our own army?” Hylli asked, her tone grim.

“No, it’s not like that at all! Safkhet wants the same thing I do – to stop the war for everyone’s sake! We just… we have to make the first move. For the sake of our species we have to show the surfacers that we’re willing to coexist with them. That’s why she wanted my help… uh… in escaping, and… freeing the prisoners we’ve taken.”

“You know how all this sounds, right Chief?”

“I know, of course – I mean, I didn’t believe it either, not at first – but this whole war makes no sense. Safkhet was right about that too. It was madness to attack the surface, or to sabotage our own mines… but it all makes sense if… if there’s someone behind it all, someone who has a different agenda. Someone who can use this crisis as a justification to take the throne….”

~~~

“Justification to take the throne….”

The words echoed in Uldmar’s head, within the cabin beside that of the Chief Aulogemscire.

Ivaldi’s voice was still coming from the voice gem, but Hylli had configured the panel in the other room to one-way transmission.

The whole thing had been her idea, a desperate ploy to prove Ivaldi’s good faith.

At first Lord Uldmar had thought it ridiculous, but… the evidence from Vitrgraf was real. The aulogemscire from Captain Beyla’s crew had, with some difficulty, confirmed much of what Ivaldi and Hylli had found in it.

Uldmar had dismissed him with a stern warning that his life would be forfeit should he ever reveal a word of the matter to anyone, even the captain, but he could not so easily dispatch his doubts.

Instead they only grew, as Ivaldi went on, expanding upon what he’d said previously, and going into all the implausible details of the treasonous visit with Safkhet.

Lord Uldmar imagined covering the whole thing up once more, as Ivaldi feared, but the very thought disgusted him. That would be a greater treason than any Ivaldi had committed; a violation of his oaths to the King and his duty to his people.

But even the accusations were actually true, how could he turn on his own uncle and dishonor his House and bring shame upon their warrens? It had been his uncle that imbued that very sense of duty and honor into his young nephew which now so tortured him. Who had chosen and molded him into a successor worthy of the ancient and proud House Hreidmar.

Ivaldi was disgracing that lineage and undermining everything for which the Justicar and his venerable antecedents had spent their lifetimes working.

Uldmar rose to his feet, fists tightening as he resolved himself.

There was only one thing to be done.

Stepping towards the door, the floor lurched under him as a resounding series of metal booms shook the crawler.

Stunned, he wondered if it was the Formorians again. Never before had he heard of them venturing so deep to attack crawlers, but it was thanks to their previous attempts that he had caught Ivaldi in the act.

The alarms blared to life, but not with the usual double chime.

A rising crystalline scream sounded out the dire warning; emergency, all hands to battle.