Chapter 21
Desari searched for the ornate number plate at the top of the elevator. It had been removed, a piece of metal covering it.
Trying to hide which floor they’re on? Ilus had all the markers of a city under siege. A people that had grown used to the fighting, numb to it.
“Nice digs,” Petor said, tapping her on the shoulder. She looked over at his easy-going smile. His attempt to distract her.
“It looks like your people have adapted well to the current situation. Better than most would have,” Valter said.
“It has been a hard few years, though we’ve pulled together,” Ikor said gruffly, though there was some pride in the old man’s voice.
“How do the elevators work?” Valter asked.
“Piston filled with air push us up from the base and then there are gears that run on mana in the sides,” Desari said. “Going up it gets powered with mana. Going back down you take out the power and the air comes out of the piston, its on a valve that releases it slowly, lowering the whole thing back to the ground.”
“Interesting,” Valter said.
The elevator came to a stop, metal bolts locking into place, pushing the doors open at the same time.
Ikor stepped out and the others followed.
It was laid out different from how she—Desari grimaced at the sudden loss of mana.
Formations glowed on the ceiling and the floor, hidden into its details. On a floor above was an audience in tiered seating, on the other side was seating for the council. Four seats and one empty.
Desari glanced back at the others, their hands relaxed around their hips, checking the room for exits, threats, planning what they would do if everything went to shit.
Losing our access to ambient mana wasn’t according to what Ikor said . Desari remained calm. She couldn’t draw in more mana but she could still call upon all that was stored in her channels and core.
She held her hand out to them, holding them back. Each wore their armor and weapons. Valter foregoing his helmet.
Thankfully Petor had charged all of their enchantments, still she’d need to power her storage device’s enchantments to draw out her weapon. Each move she made would be easily visible. Worst, she didn’t want to do any of that.
The lights illuminated the council member’s seats, Ikor stepped through a side door that closed behind him.
“Little theatrical,” Mya muttered. Her words cutting into the light headedness and flush that clawed at Desari’s cheeks.
She lifted her eyes to the council members at that table.
“Desari, Haker,” Egrin, headmaster of ilus, her teacher, mentor and someone who had taken a place that only her grandparents occupied looked down from his seat in the middle of that table.
The years had finally caught up with him. The roguish light in his eyes had dimmed, his smile wasn’t as bright. His hair more greys and whites than the faint reminders of brown. His beard cut back and his hair shaved down.
No longer the wild mane, only to be tamed with ties, his beard covered with knots and metals. His appearance was austere. Though there was still a warmth in his smile.
Mutterings spread through those in the audience seats. People leaning forward to get a better look at them.
Jana cleared her throat from her seat on his other side.
Her hair was pulled back into its always severe bun, not a hair out of place, jet black, her glasses firmly affixed. Her lack of makeup, softened her some, though there was a greater hardness in her eyes. Though it was altered, more focused.
Given by the fact she gave a light cough instead of a reproach.
A door opened behind them and Ikor moved to his seat, smiling to his other councillors and patting Penrik on the shoulder, the stick thin man gave him a tight smile. He’d much rather be head deep in his research. It was only Jana twisting his arm and the grand debates the council fell into that kept him in his seat. Zedna gave him a severe look but reached out to him, clasping hands.
Desari kept her expression neutral. Looks like they finally figured out that they can do more than just argue at one another.
“You arrived on a ship bearing flags we do not know. Could you give us some context?” Egrin asked.
“The Emberclaw clan has fallen.” The crowd burst into chattering again.
“Does every little discovery throw you into a bunch of mutterers?” Jana gave the audience a chilling glare.
Silence fell once again.
“Sometimes, it is quite exciting to learn something new,” Penrik said, holding his chin. He’d been musing on the question deeply.
“I like him,” Petor stage whispered behind his hand.
Jana’s eyebrow twitched, she closed her eyes to gain strength once more. “Please continue.” Her severity hadn’t diminished.
“The Infernal Marauders have taken over the ports that they control, intercepted several of their fleets and are consolidating their new position. They are interested in peaceful trade and working together,” Desari finished.
“The Molten Fist and the Cinderborn will put pressure upon them,” Ikor promised.
“The Molten Fist’s morale is low, their food supplies are minimal. The Cinderborn’s military are stealing supplies from them to make up their own shortfalls. Cinderstein is currently a battlefield between the higher castes. Though that problem will resolve itself by the end of the day.”
“How?” Zedna asked.
“The volcano will largely cease to exist,” Desari’s voice carried no inflection, no emotion. A simple fact, the same tone Penrik used.
She didn’t miss the grimace on Egrin’s face, he’d hardened but still some options were too far, too much for him.
There was a lower tone to the mutterings in the audience. The council members looked among one another. Coming to a silent consensus.
“What are your aims here?” Egrin asked, barely keeping his voice level.
“Ilus—” The next word choked in her throat, was it still her home? “—is dear to me. I came to see how you were doing.” She took in a breath. “Upon learning that you were under siege, well. I didn’t like that. So my friends and I set about changing the situation. By the end of the week listening to Valter’s guidance, this fight should be brought to a close.”
That sent the audience into overload. Hope was strong among them, though there were many that didn’t believe in such a thing happening so easily.
“Valter?” Egrin asked.
The man stepped forward. Desari moved back, giving him the floor. She’d called them friends , not companions, associates, actual friends. The words rang true in her heart and gut.
“Why should we listen to you?”
“You don’t know how to fight a war,” Valter’s blunt answer struck those at the table and in the stands.
“We have been fighting this war for nearly a year!” Zedna growled, her eyes narrowing.
“You have been holding a defense. From the reports your weaponry has been decent. Your enemy has worked to increase their fighting force, trained them well, bought weapons to combat your own advantages. You adapted to the environment, worked to sate the people within your walls and with weapons and defenses that worked the first time you have not adapted or grown. Your soldiers are willing. I bet there are a number of veterans upon your number but the training is not harsh or strict enough to forge people into soldiers. Trained militia yes.” Valter scanned the table for more questions.
“How many battles have you been in?” Jana asked. It actually sounded like a genuine question, the normal cutting edge Desari was used to, removed.
“I stopped counting. I fought for twenty decades from battlefield to battlefield.” Valter’s words landed among the audience who muttered among themselves, albeit quietly.
“How could you bring about the end of this fight? Details.” Penrik asked.
“Remove the Cinderborn as a threat, then contact the Molten Fist, they were thrown into this war through circumstance. We create an agreement with them,” His words were overridden by talking in the audience stands.
“WAS I LOOKING FOR YOUR INPUT.” Valter’s booming voice cut through the chambers, bringing silence with it. His eyes raked over those there. “We talk of the continued life within these walls. You will be silent or so help me I will throw you from this room by your damn shirt.”
Threat understood he turned back to the council.
“The Molten Fist is spread out, their people might not be happy with them right now, but they are better than their old leadership. They are loyal to a much higher degree than the Cinderborn are to their leaders. The way to end a fight, is to create another option, then you need to blend the people together to make it so that another fight will not occur.”
Penrik nodded along, the other councillors holding their tongues as Valter continued.
“Offer them a way to disarm, to send their farmers back to their fields. They are mercenaries and a good fighting force. Ilus needs a good fighting force to remain here in the Abyssal Plane. Your greatest defence on the material plane wasn’t the power that you wielded, it was how people from across the plane sent their best to learn at your academy. You create peace through relationships, by bringing people into the whole.”
“You would make the Molten Fist, a group that has been fighting us for nearly half of a year, our fighting force? You think we can trust them to not turn on us?” Ikor scoffed.
Murmurs were cut off with a glower from Valter.
“All the information points to them not wanting to being in this fight. They had to attack you, or be attacked by the Cinderborn. They were a rat in a trap, they knew what would happen with Cinderborn, they didn’t know what would happen with Ilus. Ally with the Molten Fist, Ally with the Infernal Marauders, you gain forces that defended you from the sea and from land. In return you bring administration, they are used to dealing with soldiers, those that follow orders or are pushed to the side. You are used to dealing with a city with many different needs and problems.”
He was drawing them in now, changing the problem.
“Their farming is rudimentary. Desari has told me about how you increased the yields of plants, even creating new ones to work in different environments. Bringing this information to farmers, returning to their fields beyond the planting season? Mix your students, your people with theirs, till the lines blur. That is how you create peace, you turn them ,” He held his open hand towards the wall, bringing it to his chest in a fist. “Into us .”
He let the ideas flow for a few seconds. “Think of what you could do with the Infernal Marauders ships? You study nations here, what if you were to turn Dragon Falls into a bastion of technology and food? Sure there are going to be many that look to steal that from you. This is the abyssal realm. Though you have a trained military at your hand now, armed with the best you can build. They can continue as a mercenary force, work with the Infernal Marauders. They need not just trade in your goods, but trade in the goods of others.”
“Create more points to bind us with others,” Penrik said. “Winning through administration.” He smiled and looked at Egrin. “Did you not say that the world might find peace when people stopped seeing one another as their difference, but instead by their similarities?”
“But we have been fighting with them, how can they get past that?” Zedna asked.
“Soldiers follow orders, they place trust in the people that are leading them.” Valter’s voice was soft, calming, drawing in the council and audience. “You have been fighting them for half of a year, they have also been fighting you for the same time. Few, very few soldiers want war. They are ready for it, they train for it, but they’d much prefer to do the training, learn different skills, and then go home to their families who are safe.” His eyes sank, lost to somewhere else. He raised them after a few heavy seconds. “What do you lose from opening up that option?”
Desari stepped forward. “Ilus as a city looks to bring the best out of people. To push the limits of knowledge and people beyond previously established boundaries. For years I lived in this city fighting off the influences that grew in the dark. Groups that wanted to take what was here and twist it for their own means. Before you were separate groups, a mishmash that was intentionally left separate. In your time here, you have firmed up the structure that was always there. Ilus was not just an academy, a place of learning, it was a city well into the past. The Geraxi Empire saw you as a threat, so they chose to eliminate you. Treaties and alliances are good, they help, but they do not guarantee anything at the end of the day. You have to rely upon yourself to carve out your own future.” She turned, looking to the audience. “With this, Ilus will stop being just a city-state, just an academy, it will build the roots of a nation. For you need a nation to protect yourselves now. The Geraxi Empire was attacked by many, they were pushed back. Until their pantheon and their avatar acted and ended the fighting. They were weakened but not done. Life continues on.” She turned to the council, to Egrin. “I wish that if you wanted peace you would get it. Unfortunately peace does not come just because you want it. It comes when you want it and you work to make sure that you have a big enough stick to make anyone trying to stomp on your peace—take pause and hold back.”
Egrin lowered his eyes and sunk into his chair, looking all the older.
“I tracked across worlds and planes to come back to Ilus, because it is my home. I have fought for it and I will fight for it again if I have to. Valter understands war, Petor knows how to train an army and motivate people. Mya could trade a spark to a fire elemental. Working together we can create a future where Ilus not only recovers, it becomes stronger.”
Egrin sat up, his fatigue washed away.
“Seems a plausible plan,” Penrik nodded.
Zedna gave a short nod too.
Jana looked to Egrin, Ikor was watching him from the other side too.
“We have much to discuss, we will adjourn to talk more.” Egrin pushed back his chair from the table.
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The audience filled the vacuum with voices as they flung the doors open to the chamber.
The door Ikor had gone through opened and a guard walked out, gesturing Desari and the others forward.
“This way.” Another guard on the other side led them through corridors, the first guard closing the door behind them.
Two sets of stairs, another bunch of corridors and they were in a sitting room. Windows took up most of one wall, looking at the Dragon Falls and Cinderstein beyond.
“Not long until dusk now,” Valter said.
A door opened to the side and the councillors came out.
Desari moved unconsciously towards Egrin. He didn’t stop, opening his arms and wrapping them around her as he clenched her tight. He might spend his time trying to break the boundaries of magic, but his blue core gave him such strength that she coughed from the pressure.
“Oh! Sorry Desari I forget my own strength,” He started moving away.
Desari hugged him and squeezed him tight. He laughed and kept hugging her. He took in a breath and let it go, patting her on the back, they released and he looked at her.
“I—when, I saw the fight.” His hands tightened on her shoulders.
“I died,” Desari said. Getting the others attention who were trying to look anywhere but their reunion. “Souls transition to a place before the Celestial Plane, there their god if they have chosen one, picks them up. If they don’t have one then the other gods barter for them. We,” Desari looked back at the other horsemen. “Well we had another option that allowed us to reborn.”
“Well that gives one a bit of an existential crisis,” Egrin said dryly.
“Well if you’re looking to support a good god, don’t look further than Elise, goddess of judgement, gives you an afterlife based on the life you lived here.” Mya winked.
Egrin laughed, filling the room with noise, he patted her on the shoulder and released her. “Valter, Petor and Mya.” He looked to each of them in turn. “Thank you for helping Desari, I see her as a daughter I never had. Seeing her well, healthy, and adventuring .” He shot her a sly look before sobering. “Is, well, I don’t think I can quite believe it yet, or try to put it into words.”
The look in his eyes, the openness, his joy and happiness for the world to see, it made Desari want to hug him all over again, but there was work to be done.
“First, lets get you out of this mess,” She pulled out papers and moved to the table in the middle of the room. She dropped packets, moving around the table.
“There is information on Molten Fist, their leadership. The state of the land when they came to it and when you appeared. Updates from then. We’ve got information on the Infernal Marauders, though Mya has been working closely with them and is the best source we have on what they’re actually like.” Desari paused and took out several thicker packets. “Information on the Geraxi Empire, the region where Ilus was located and information on Etera overall. Lastly information on Vedra.”
Valter passed the table, looking out of the window over Ilus.
“Less interesting that new alchemical reactions,” Pernik said, picking up a packet and reading through it. “Though good to understand to complete this role.”
“I don’t mean to be the one that steps on this, but Desari betrayed us,” Ikor said.
Jana took an information packet as well and moved to one of the seats. Penrik just stood there, probably forgetting the world around him again.
Desari moved around the table.
“You fed the Geraxi Empire information on us, on our city.” Ikor said, a tiredness and reluctance to his voice.
“I started feeding them information when I arrived to maintain my cover. Though I was a student there wasn’t much information I could pass to them. I started sending them less and less as there was nothing new to learn. Instead I was spending more time learning the way of magic than about Ilus’ secrets. I kept that trend up even as I learned more, changed information to obscure truths. Hide how ill prepared you were for an attack. I tried to seed in information through every damn avenue to build up a force that could fight and defend Ilus from others.”
“Its true,” Jana said.
Desari raised her eyebrow at that.
Jana shrugged and looked at Egrin to talk, returning to her reading.
“We knew of your background and even with the limited information from the Geraxi Empire, there was more to you than what you put down on your application. You were learning how to do spells.” Egrin shrugged. “You had several ways to rebuff our watching, but we watched you. Studied you. You turned from spy to student, then to defender and guardian over Ilus. Jana and I came to understand you. I came to admire you, and part of why I reached out. I told you everything I knew about Ilus because I trusted you and knew you would use it to protect your home.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Desari asked.
“Worried what you might think, remember that whole daughter thing?” Jana licked a finger and flipped the page.
Egrin rubbed his forefinger’s nail against the underside of his thumb, as he did when he was nervous.
“It would have been a lot easier if we could have talked about everything that was going on!” Desari said, frustrated and relieved.
“You’re not angry?” Egrin asked tentatively.
“No, a little proud actually. Even with all of my training you were able to spy on me and figure out what I was doing and evaluated me,” Desari said.
“Well that’s a relief,” Egrin ran a hand through his hair.
“You knew?” Ikor yelled.
“Of course I knew, I checked everyone that got let in on the secrets around Ilus. I might not be able to check everyone in the population but I did check out everyone that ran it,” Egrin looked a little wounded at that.
“Just, well, really?”
Zedna hit him in the chest making him wheeze. “Now, why did you come with them from the molten wastes?”
“He nearly died in one of the cities, creating a distraction and allowing the others that came with him on the raid to escape,” Valter said from his window. “This enchantment is so responsive. I can zoom in and look at everything through different kinds of mage sight I don’t even control.”
“It was a fun project to look into,” Penrik said.
“Took damn hours to get it all right, then fit it into the lining of the window. Then there was all of the enchantments into the building we had to layer down. Someone being paranoid,” Zedna threw a glare at Penrik.
It had the effect of a bloated squirrel yeeting itself at a wall, sliding down slowly. “I think that it has stood up admirably to its weathering. I said that we should have done it to all of the buildings, not just the foundations. If we created one singular pad it would have greatly helped in the teleportation and we would not have lava rivers through our streets.”
“You’ve been knee deep in that molten rock studying it!” Zedna yelled.
“One does not affect the other. If we had done the first completely and thoroughly the second would not have occurred. Instead it would have gone under the city, or it would have built up outside of the walls. A different, interesting problem.”
“Information packets,” Egrin reminded.
Penrik nodded and dropped his head to the reading material. Penrik lived for problems, once he had a solution, going just halfway would irk the hell out of him.
“You were saying about Ikor doing something stupid?” Zedna asked Valter.
“It was a good decision, it allowed everyone to get out of the city, he was heavily wounded and moved away. I moved to help him, he tried to kill me, I put him down and got him out of there, healed him and then had to hide out in the city. Kept him sedated throughout.”
“Why?” Zedna asked.
“He punched my lights out and was saying his was my ally!” Ikor yelled.
Zedna shrugged, in a way that could mean ‘so would I’ or ‘fair enough’.
“Lyra who controlled the city must’ve figured out something. Either him being alive, or me working against them. Not that I could do much more than wait for the posters around town to reveal themselves with time. She attacked, we ran, I woke him up, Desari arrived, we left. Took a port city, then travelled here.”
“Makes that sound a little bit more badass that way,” Petor said, his arms crossed as he looked at Valter and talked to Mya.
“All imposing, dark at the window like.” Mya agreed, then snapped her fingers. “We should get him a cloak!”
“Like a real fluffy one, and then a pipe that lights up his face in the shadows?”
Valter shook his head but Desari saw the slight upturn of his lips from her angle.
“Got the recipe for that sleeping potion? Or something to stop him snoring?”
“Zedna!”
“What?” She whirled on him with a pointed finger. “I can’t hear my dreams with you trying to conjure lightning with your tonsils! Going out there playing soldier and nearly getting your damned self killed!” Her anger cracked into the fear underneath.
Ikor wrapped his arms around her as she grabbed onto his shirt, holding him tight.
The sun dipped under the horizon, lighting up the ash clouds with their last rays.
She turned to the window.
“Its time,” Valter said, glancing back to her.
Desari nodded, drawing out a contract, the paper was thick, stiff, the ink potent. It was the strongest contract she had made, it would have to be, connecting so many souls. It had taken Mya’s help to craft up such a thing.
Petor turned to present his back.
A noble table for such a deed. She thought he would have been against it, but their time together Petor had changed.
She took out a potion, raising it to Mya, they’d worked together to make something that should stop her soul from actually tearing apart.
“Keep it together now,” Mya said, her voice serious.
It hit Desari deeply. There was no need for this, the others had argued that, but she’d argued against them. The people of Ilus needed every advantage possible.
She threw back the potion, getting past the thick slurry trying not to taste the foul concoction. Her stomach was rebelling but she got it all in, storing the potion and drawing a knife.
“Desari?” Egrin asked.
She cut her hand on the contract and turned it to press against the central inscription.
Essence flowed into her, the soul contract bordering on the Mythical level completed, mana picked up, drawn in from the world, from her. It surged into her. The contract rose from Petor’s back, floating in the air, the mana stuffing into the paper and ink.
Petor moved away to the side, Desari felt his mana pouring into her, his full mana regeneration backing her own.
“There it goes,” Mya said.
It was all the warning she got, it felt like tens of thousands of barbed needles plunged into her soul, fighting to grab as much as they could and then tore away.
She cracked a tooth through the pain as the council members hissed.
“Desari!?” Egrin demanded.
The connections solidified, Desari connecting to every single person in Ilus. She scrambled to pull out a an enchanted piece of metal, her very soul compelling her, threatening to obliterate her if she didn’t complete her part of the contract.
With a thread of mana that burned her very channels to draw on.
Petor grunted, pouring more into her, draining his own reserves.
Her power flowed into the enchantment, activating it and its twin it was connected to.
The contract flared with power, already singing from the power flowing through it, it burned up completely.
The connections tearing at her soul released, the pieces threading back together and slamming into one whole.
Desari spat out the piece of broken teeth and blood, past the pain as she looked around, not knowing when she had fallen to the floor, too weak to stand.
Petor helped her up and Mya put a chair behind her.
“What was that contract for, what did you do?” Egrin demanded.
Desari could barely lift her finger, pointing beyond Valter, at Cinderstein. All of the councillors turned as Mya gave her a health potion. Petor downed a mana one, his mana working to refill her own. Going to be one hell of a mana headache, and soul ache.
She didn’t even rub her chest the pain was so much.
Movement caught her eye as she finished off the potion. Mya stored it away for her.
Lava spewed out of Cinderstein like sparks from hammered metal. Thunder roared as it shot into the sky.
Old tubes blew out cracking open old sealed tubes, going from base to peak, cracks branched up the side of the volcano and then blew out, covering the area in molten smoke and dust, angry red as it continued to plume with successive detonations, a white sphere emitting from it, rushing across the ground.
Lightning, angry purples and blues tore through the cloud.
The room held in silence, rock, molten and not raining back down, across Dragons Fall.
“Here comes the boom.”
Valter turned his head and braced his shoulder.
A boom shattered the window with undeniable physical force.
Desari looked back up, Valter shrugging off the window’s remains. Cinderstein, now a pillar of dust in the sky, pulled by the wind.
The ground shuddered, various items rattling, sending people stumbling before it settled down.
The volcano dropped like it was an avalanche, its mass collapsing onto the remains below. Another detonation threw up the rain of rocks and remains of Cinderstein.
Rocks larger than the biggest towers in Ilus rained down on the plains.
“Now, there is no more Cinderstein to negotiate,” Valter said, as if he was checking off something on a list. He turned from the window to address the council members. “Best we send out a message to the Molten Fist soon as possible to have the greatest impact and implied threat.”
“What was that?” Egrin breathed into the world, his face pale.
Desari’s head and soul was still splitting but her vision wasn’t swimming anymore. “A connected summoning enchantment and another to protect the plate from the molten heat.” She lifted her head to focus on the council members. “I dropped it in the heart of the volcano and then when activated it summoned an iceberg.”
“The iceberg turned from a solid to a gas in a short and rapid period of time, the steam from such a thing rushing through the volcano, agitating its state and causing it to explode,” Penrik supplied.
“Correct.” Desari took on their gazes, their thoughts.
“Then the soul binding?” Zedna tilted her head frowning. “You made it with all of us?”
“All of Ilus.”
“That’s eighty two thousand people,” Jana sounded shocked for the first time Desari knew.
“Yeah, wouldn’t suggest it.” Desari grumbled, “I made a contract that I would serve those that I was bound to by doing what I believed was the best to protect them. It linked us, made my actions their actions.”
“Why would you do that?” Ikor asked.
“Essence.” Desari said, a whisp of it threaded into her and into her core, easing a lot of the pain in her soul.
Everyone in the room had that slight blank look of those looking at their cores. Petor and Mya twitched, trying to hide their reactions to their cores going from Yellow flecked with green to yellow mixed with green.
“Its not too much,” Ikor said.
“Not for us, but think of those that have red cores, or orange ones, the amount of experience is going to be much greater than our own,” Penrik said. “Enough to increase people’s cores, a grade or two.”
“They’re gone,” Egrin said, glass cracking under his feet as he moved to the window.
“This letter, what should we mention in it?” Jana asked.
“A meeting tomorrow in a neutral location, say halfway between us and their nearest town. We’ll host, we can use that to show off our strength and ability. Organized for midday tomorrow. Do you have potions to increase focus and reduce the effects of not sleeping?” Valter asked.
“Of course,” Zedna said.
“Good, I would suggest that you sit down with the Infernal Marauders tonight, invite them for a meal and chat on a continued future together. Then tomorrow they can come with us to the meeting. They are a familiar face to the Molten Fist and able to apply pressure and reassure them. We do not want to say they are surrendering, merely that we are discussing a new future and opportunity.”
“Why not ask for their surrender?” Ikor asked, his question academic, not backed with emotion.
“Surrender is seen as a dirty word. If they can appear to have won and come to an agreement on their people’s behalf, it makes them appear stronger. That is good as we start blending people together. There is no victor, it creates a baseline for everyone,” Valter said.
“Egrin?” Jana asked.
The man turned from the window. “It sounds like we have a lot of work to be done. The sooner we begin the sooner that we finish.”