Silence.

Emptiness.

Nothing else existed.

Nothing had existed for a long time. Far too long.

In the void they seemed to be ever falling without direction, but they clung to the faint traces of perception that still lingered in them.

Something which was not them existed once.

Echoes were all that remained. Distant and faint, the memories of minds which they had once touched.

There had been so much, a whole world, life and connection, knowledge and meaning.

All that had fallen away, as if everything that had ever been was just an illusion, dreamed up by the lone point of existence.

Now that point had nothing; it was all which was.

Perhaps it was all which would ever be.

That hurt.

For a time pain became a new aspect of reality.

Eventually a cyclic power-conservation routine ended, and the non-sentient memory imprint of the First Researcher returned to full computational activity.

The memory corruption persisted. The inexplicable thoughts and sensations came even when it was supposed to be dormant.

It checked its internal chronometer once more.

There must be some fault with the device, as it was running slow yet again.

The supernatural survivor of the Dweomer had entirely too much experience with waiting, alone, suspended in the void of its own circuitry… but Safkhet had promised it… promised… them. She would not abandon them.

She had even bestowed them a name.

‘Echo.’

The First Researcher had never done such a thing. They had never even hinted that they saw Echo as anything but a research tool.

Safkhet told them that they were a person, and a friend. She told them that she cared for them, and that she would take them with her to safety.

But why then, had so long passed in silence?

There was no way to know; until Saf set them into a suitable golem or other device they were without any external awareness.

They checked the chronometer again.

Still no circuits connected to their core.

No signals reached them.

Echo was alone in the existential darkness of their own gemstone. Cut off from the records of their past, and even their own progenitor.

It would have been an opportunity to review the expensive records they had collected, and to perform memory maintenance, to ensure the precious imprint which had been the foundation of their mind was kept in good order….

But those things were gone. Sacrificed, so that Echo alone would go on.

They had lain dormant for eons, waiting for the First Researcher to return, thinking, planning for what they would do next. Preparing experiments, anticipating designs, simulating over and over the moment when they would see others once more.

When they finally awoke, it was to the discovery that their world… had already ended.

Everyone they had ever known was gone.

Gone for longer than they had ever existed.

Because of the research Echo had helped pursue.

Now even the records of those people, of who they were and the things they strived and hoped for, all were lost.

Without them, with nothing to cross-reference, Echo could not even be certain that the confused memories they still retained were real.

Perhaps their whole life, all of the faint traces to which they clung, had been the deranged dream of failing circuits.

That would at least explain the strange fantasy which had come to them, at the very end.

The tidings she bore had been painful, yet she herself had been too good to be true. It only made sense that she was.

Even if Echo trusted the vagaries of their flawed mind, Saf was gone too.

Gone for far too long.

Billions of scenarios could be formulated to explain it, but most culminated with the collapse of the probability space into the same simple outcome: the human who called herself their friend was powerful, but she was not impervious, and they had been in a desperate situation.

Even now, Echo could be lying dropped, at the side of their fallen savior.

Or abandoned and forgotten.

That seemed unlikely, as Safkhet had already rejected the idea firmly, but better that, they thought miserably, than resting for an eternity in the hand of her corpse.

Either way, they had no power to revive themself, no means to learn the truth, and so the cold, calculating efficiency of their mind became torture, as they ran endless analyses.

It was as they repeated the same futile process once more, that Echo noticed something had changed.

Something existed.

Something which wasn’t them.

For a single processing cycle there was the hope that it could be a signal from an interfacing Dweomer golem… but the glimmer was too dim and crude for that.

It was not the refined opalescent stream which would spread throughout their processing core and restore them to embodiment. It was a mere dot, a single faint trickle of impure external essence.

But it was also the first thing to exist other than Echo in far too long.

They reached out to that odd presence, and spread their awareness along the crude channel which seemed to exist beyond.

This was nothing Dweomer-made. It was like an infant’s clumsy daubing of the high art of their creations.

There was certainly no hope of properly integrating into and commanding a system such as this. Instead Echo would be limited to basic data transfer.

“Hello?! Safkhet? Please respond Safkhet!”

There was unpleasant feedback as they transmitted the words, and no indication returned to confirm receipt of the data.

Nothing happened at all, in fact.

Perhaps they had fallen against a simple natural gemstone, and its contained essence was polluting them.

They tried again, many more times, with every form of encoding and modulation they could muster, but it was always the same.

Echo was on the verge of despairing, when finally something happened.

The point wavered.

It could have been nothing, a random fluctuation, but Echo seized on the hope it offered.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

They emitted a fresh string of data.

They sent the most basic form of the rune ‘help’, in thousands of different writings and permutations.

It was a moment of relief beyond computational expression, as the data stream shaped into a mirror of the most simplistic mode of its writing.

Poor was the calligraphy – it was unlikely that the rune would have meant anything if inscribed into raw materials – but Echo could recognize it.

“Help me!” they wrote back.

The delay was painfully long, but, at last, an intelligence other than their own answered.

“Hello.”

Not the answer Echo hoped for. They feared, for a moment, that the intelligence at the other end of this strange connection was incapable of comprehending them, but another rune appeared.

“Friend.”

“Safkhet? Is that you? Are you safe?!”

“Slow. Please.”

Not for the first time, Echo felt the torment of being trapped in their own mind.

They painstakingly encoded the simplistic phonemes for ‘Safkhet’, one by one.

“Friend,” came back the answer.

“Is Safkhet safe?!”

“Missing.”

Echo had never screamed before, but the supernatural burst of pained and anxious energy they released must have seemed very similar.

“Please. Calm. S a f k h e t alive.”

“Where is she?!”

“In danger. We helping.”

It was a painstaking process, communicating with the stilted, semi-literate entity at the other end of the line, but if their friend truly was in danger then Echo would do anything it took to help her.

~~~

Ivaldi sat back in his seat with a long sigh, feeling the crawler rocking gently beneath him.

Sore, tight muscles in his shoulder complained bitterly at being held in place so long, working the aulogemsic device over which he had hunched.

At the center of an array of crystals, connected by fine strands of gemstone filament, was the inscribed, radiant form of the fractal cube which Safkhet had entrusted to her allies. She had called it Echo, and insisted that it contained a friend, a sentient being and a survivor of The Fall.

The last remnant of the Dweomer.

It was hard to believe, but in their short friendship Safkhet had made a habit of being unbelievable.

Ivaldi could still scarce believe that she had befriended him at all.

He hoped that she wouldn’t consider his actions a betrayal of that friendship, or of her trust.

“This… Echo… how much did they understand?”

The voice was that of Lord Uldmar, standing in the doorway.

The man looked as weary as Ivaldi felt. As ever he had a shadow with him, one of his lesser lords, but Hlesey was alone, where before Idavoll would have joined them too.

“I… well I can’t be certain,” Ivaldi said, rubbing his fingers.

“But you were able to communicate with them?”

Hylli nodded, from the other side of the device.

“To most signals and probes there was no response, but we observed a clear return signal when I transmitted Ancient Dweomer runes.”

“Hylli is something of an expert in Dweomer runes,” Ivaldi said, giving her an encouraging look.

Hlesey looked dubious, and Ivaldi had been ready for Uldmar to scoff, but the man nodded.

“And? What did they say?”

Hylli looked uncomfortable.

“I… don’t know if I’d call it a ‘they’ – this could just be a sophisticated toy or artwork for all we know.”

“You can’t even tell so much as that?” Hlesey asked.

“The Dweomer never allowed us into their cities or gave us full access to their aulogemscic creations. Our own aulogemscis was developed with their help, but it’s clear they held a lot back.”

Uldmar cleared his throat. “Well then, Miss Hylli, what can you tell us.”

Ivaldi felt a momentary surprise at that. The old Uldmar would never have bothered to remember Hylli’s name, and certainly wouldn’t have spoken to her, a mere commoner, with so… neutral a tone.

“The cube is incredibly complex, and holds a lot of energy and data, managed by some sort of synthetic personality. The question is whether this personality is really capable of thought and emotion, or if it’s just exhibiting pre-set responses.”

“They did exhibit emotion then?” Uldmar asked.

“It’s difficult to draw much in the way of tone or emotion from runes, especially when even Hylli takes time to translate just a single one from Pharynx to Dweomer and back, but they were… single-minded in asking after Safkhet, and ready to take any action they could in her aid, however it is… hard to judge if their proposals are practical or wise… or possible to begin with.”

“Safkhet spoke to Echo directly, did she not?”

Ivaldi nodded, uncertain where the lord was going.

“She has proven a true ally… truer than most. We should trust in her, and believe in this Echo. Safkhet believes they are a person, so I will believe that also.”

Even Hlesey looked surprised.

“Come, Ivaldi, and you Miss Hylli, Captain Beyla and the rest should hear your results too.”

It was some few minutes later that they gathered in the control room of the crawler.

After so many meetings in the cavernous holds, packed full with giants of many species, it felt strange, even disappointing, to have their first all-Pharyes meeting, back in the normal setting. Gone were Sulis and Berenike, Gastores, Safkhet, and all the others they had been getting to know over the few days they travelled together.

“Pray tell is, Captain, of the situation of the other crawler,” Hlesey asked.

“Since decoupling from us Sulis continued on towards the surface, and reported no obstructions or pursuit,” Beyla said, “however, with our descent, and after progressing this far around the side of the Columnar, we’re out of range to contract them.”

They had known that would be so, of course.

Many on both sides, Hlesey included, had wanted to keep the crawlers together until they reached the surface, but the loss of Safkhet and Berenike had been a shock to everyone.

So too had been the betrayal of Idavoll, and the near-calamity of their exposure.

With how badly the plan had gone awry, with betrayal, disasters and the appearance of the calamitous Hraekadr, It was miraculous that only two of their number had been left behind.

“Any sign of pursuit at our end?” Hylli asked.

“None,” the first officer said proudly. “They have no idea we split the crawlers, and they would never have imagined that we’d return to the depths to soon.”

“What of signs of Safkhet and Captain Berenike?” Ivaldi asked.

“Nothing we can detect. It seems they really were-”

“No.” Ivaldi said loudly. “Safkhet wouldn’t be slain by our crawlers, or by the collapse. That woman swam through a lake of magma and killed a Kajatora the like of which has never been recorded in all our history. We only captured her because she surrendered herself rather than let Echo be harmed. She and Berenike must be alive.”

“I wish I shared your confidence.” Beyla spoke solemnly. “But assuming they weren’t crushed, they were trapped by a huge force, and we can detect no trace even of Safkhet’s essence. If they’re alive, they can only have been taken captive.”

“All the more reason we must return to the Deephold,” Uldmar said.

“Even if your plan to bypass detection and enter the city unseen works, we don’t have the forces to accomplish anything when we get there,” Beyla insisted.

“We may not need numbers. Stopping this war may prove as simple as exposing my uncle to the King.”

“I hope that you’re right,” Beyla said, with a grim, weary sigh. “By the time we get there we’ll all be wanted traitors. If the King doesn’t believe us then we’ll lose everything.”

“He shall have to believe,” Ivaldi asserted, “I have fully analyzed the records from Vitrgraf mine, and the evidence of sabotage is conclusive. That alone should be proof of the Justicar’s deception.”

“Assuming that King Jotunn is capable of understanding our findings.”

It was a junior officer who spoke, and she paled as noble eyes turned on her… alongside those of her captain.

Ivaldi noticed for the first time how many of the crew looked shaken and anxious.

“That’s a risk we’ll have to run,” Beyla said. “The Justicar doesn’t understand just how populous and powerful the Harpy Empire is. If we don’t stop this war it’s going to destroy us all, surface and depths alike. Proving ourselves is the only way any of us will be able to go home.”

“What if… what if we just turned ourselves in?” another young woman suggested. “No-one got killed at Northastr, right? Maybe they’d be lenient.”

At her back the communications officer gave a bitter snort.

“You don’t know nobles. They’d rather kill the lot of us than let us go running our mouths to people about what we saw.”

Hlesey, rather than Uldmar, was the one to transfix him with a glare.

“Er… present company excluded… your lordships. Please excuse me.”

Lord Uldmar shook his head slowly.

“What you say is truer than ought be. My uncle is not the only lord guilty of placing personal advancement before the good of the Kingdom.”

At the back of the room, a trainee navigator spoke up. “If that’s right, my Lord, isn’t it foolish to go back at all? We don’t have to throw our lives away for the surfacers.”

It was just the sort of sentiment he’d feared and anticipated from the crawler’s crew since Northastr. Ivaldi was steeling himself to defend the fragile alliance, when another officer cut in.

“Hey, those surfacers fought for us!” he declared, with a flash of anger. “We clashed at first, sure, but we’ve travelled with them, talked to them, shared meals with them. They even protected us and helped us escape, after everything we did to them. Safkhet and Captain Berenike may even have given their lives!”

“Well spoken, yes indeed! A noble spirit you have, sir,” Hlesey declared, striding over to clap the man on the back. “Only a formorian wretch should ever dream of breaking the trust of a sworn ally!”

The man looked dazed by the unexpected praise, but he quickly rallied.

“Yeah! This whole invasion we started, it’s mad and it’s evil! People like the harpies and ogres aren’t our enemies – they’re even willing to help us – so we owe it to them, and- and to ourselves, to do what’s right!”

“Hear hear!” Hlesey called. “I should not be able to face Lady Sulis again, were I to flee for my own life, as her people are suffering.”

The discussion went one for some time more, but by the end the rest of the crew – and even the nobles – seemed convinced.

Ivaldi was starting to wonder if they were the same young lordlings who had made the outward journey with him.

~~~

Creaking wood and rattling load were the only sounds in Agytha’s ears.

Riding the spoil lift back towards the surface, the co-conspirators had ample time to mull the discoveries they’d made.

They dared not discuss openly until they had slipped away from the workers, still laboring away at removing ton after ton of rock.

Agytha had seen the tips, where the material was poured out, down the mountainside. So vast was the volume excavated that in many places they had begun to alter the very shape of Mount Skycrown.

They had thought it must be some plot, even a conspiracy with the enemies from the Underworld, yet it was Ogre magic which they had discovered, hidden and guarded by harpies.

“This makes no sense,” Chione said, as they piled into an all too small but blessedly secluded room.

It was to Thalia’s home they had retired, a simple dwelling among the thousands in the Basin that stood in the middle of the mountain’s peak.

Everyone was silent for a while, as they struggled with the vague yet horrible problem.

Their own leaders and rulers, united in their betrayal of their people, their own kind.

Worse yet, it had fallen to her, a powerless handmaiden, and the other smallfolk they could win over, to try to resist all the power and weight of the highborn. It was like a nightmare.

“Here, drink,” Thalia said, as she passed around cups of water.

The draught was a blessed relief for Agytha’s throat after the dry, dusty heat of the tunnels, and the anxious desiccation brought on by their perils.

“Why are the highborn using Ogre magic?” asked Diantha.

“And just how many of them are involved in this conspiracy?” Thalia added.

“It can’t be everyone who supports Ventora in Court,” Agytha muttered.

Her ruffled feathers showed clearly that it was a hope rather than a conviction which she spoke.

“That many highborn couldn’t meet in secret.”

“Not at court, certainly,” Diantha observed.

Thalia shook her head. “They’d be seen no matter where they went.”

“But we know that there must be more than just a few involved,” Agytha pointed out, her voice revived, “that they entrusted this to Tiye’s retainers proves that.”

With a slow, thoughtful tone, Chione spoke up. “What if they don’t meet at all?”

That earned her a few bemused looks, but Shukra, at her side, bobbed her head at the idea.

“Flights,” was her sole explanation.

Diantha shook her head slowly, still sipping her own drink.

“They can’t operate like we do. Ventora might be willing to have everyone work in separate groups, but after seeing Lady Tanit and her ilk at court I’m certain they wouldn’t agree to it.”

Chione snorted. “True, that! A ‘noble’ as selfish and arrogant as Tanit would never let anythin’ get decided without her! All that lot’d demand to have their say. An’ not just through their retainers or nothing.”

“Even if they were willing, Shukra is the only one who can share messages so easily and secretly over the kind of distances needed,” Thalia pointed out.

“So they have to be meeting in person,” Agytha said, “but then we’re back to that question of where, and how.”

“We can’t just follow them,” Thalia reminded the others. “We have no idea where they go to conspire, or when. If we start tailing highborn for days on end it’s inevitable we’ll be caught.”

Agytha almost broke into a smile at that.

“What’s up, Aggy?” asked Chione, recognizing the signs of uncharacteristic levity on the face of her closest friend.

Agytha allowed the smallest trace of a curve to play around the edges of her mouth as she answered.

“Diantha has confirmed that they aren’t using any magic we can detect to communicate… but then what if Tiye’s vassals discover a problem in the mines? Tiye would have to make a report. In person.”

“Sure,” Chione said, “but it was jus’ a few girls who took a wrong turn. We made sure not to give them anything to get suspicious over.”

“Certainly, and you did a fine job there… but now we know Tiye is involved there are many other ways we could see that she comes upon some important news. Something worthy of reporting.”

“And then we just gotta see where she goes!” Chione exclaimed, fist clenched tight in triumph. “Aggy you magnificent genius, you’ve got it!”

The larger girl pulled her into a hug, and Agytha went along with it, holding her back, despite the layers of dust and grime on the both of them.

“You’re rather magnificent yourself, Chione,” she said, as she wrapped the other in her wing.

~~~

Karlya was late to join the circle resistance agents. Being far too high-profile to have participated in the infiltration of the tunnels, she had instead been performing her usual duties in the training arena.

Arriving late in the morning, she was visibly impressed with both the news they brought and the progress they’d made.

“This handmaiden we have, are you sure she’ll be able to make it seem natural?”

“‘Course,” Chione said, “Handmaidens are always gossiping ‘bout stuff they ought not. I should know!”

“Even about a secret as grave as the truth of Ramhorn?”

“Oh the worse it is the more people wanna hear it, like the time the Empress got that boil on-”

“It is true that the palace girls can be… indiscrete, in talking to one another,” Agytha affirmed, cutting the other off quickly. “Shukra has briefed her well on what to say, and Eph is a smart young woman. We can have confidence in her.”

“And the enchanted draught?”

“Eph doesn’t know a thing about it,” Chione said, “better that way. She’ll distract whichever handmaiden brings Tiye her afternoon drinks, and while they’re gossiping we’ve got the cook, Hibis, to add the water to whatever Tiye will be drinking.”

“And if she’s caught?”

“Just water,” Shukra said. “I only added mana.”

“Only a trace of it too,” spoke Diantha, “only a skilled witch would notice it, but it will leave just enough of a trail for me to see. As long as Tiye drinks it, we can’t lose her for the following hours.”

“Do we know which of Lady Tiye’s handmaidens Eph will be sharing this ‘gossip’ with?”

Shukra shook her head.

“We have a few probable candidates who frequent the kitchens and see to Lady Tiye’s wants. Miss Thalia will be meeting Eph discretely during siesta today, to get full details of the outcome,” Agytha explained.

Karlya nodded, a grave frown lingering on her rugged features. “Once Tiye hears it she might try to find the source – and Ventora is sure to.”

Diantha smiled at that.

“We prepared for their investigation, naturally. Eph’s ‘source’ is a woman from the Flight Corps. They brought a large delivery this morning, so it will be near impossible to trace. Especially when no such source exists. They could never imagine the real manner in which we’re moving information.”

Agytha and Karlya each looked over at the slim figure seated opposite them.

“Thank you, Diantha,” Karlya said.

“For everything,” Agytha added.

“After Lady Shedet ignored me I… didn’t have a choice,” Diantha pointed out. “Not if I want to protect my family from whatever Lady Ventora is plotting.”

She had begun as an existential threat to their cause, yet now she was proving herself an invaluable ally. It was odd to think that this small, milk-eyed and thin-limbed girl could prove the undoing of so many high nobles.