As if on cue, Gaia rounded a colonnade, holding some white linens.

Smiling and waving to them, she said, “As much as I love the rough and tumble, fresh-from-the-field look you guys are putting out, these are for you.” She placed the white linens on the edge of the richly covered divans they had slept on.

“Go ahead and change. You can leave those...” She pointed to the rags hanging from their bodies in tattered, blood-soaked, and muddy strips. “Over there... for burning.”

Looking down at their clothes and realizing that the articles of clothing they wore had seen much better days, they nodded their thanks and reached for the fresh set.

Sen rushed to take off his rags, but seeing Josh just standing there looking at Gaia, he stopped pulling off his upper garment halfway over his head, leaving it at the midway point.

Josh looked pointedly at Gaia and raised his eyebrows...

Gaia looked back with a prurient smile on her face. “After all, you already saw mine!” She winked lewdly at them.

“For the love...” Josh mumbled, turning around, and pulling what was left of his clothes off.

Soft undergarments went on first. Next were the pants—a sturdier linen for the britches type of lower garment. It pleated between the legs and ended just above the knees for full movement. Next was an off-white upper garment that reminded Josh of a tank top. Last was a rectangular cloak that Gaia showed them how to wear and fasten over their right shoulders with a solid bronze brooch.

“I remember putting my first kids in their chlamys...” A sad smile touched her eyes for the briefest of moments. Then, she straightened their outfits out with a few quick, well-practiced movements, like any good mother would do for her children on their first day of school.

“Now, boys, the Earth Crystals are down there.” She pointed to a closed door between two nearby columns.

A door that Josh would have sworn wasn’t there even thirty seconds ago. Braziers on either side lit up, strengthening his suspicions.

“No one has been down there in a very long time. Keep your eyes open. In the old places of the Earth, lost Essence from the fallen can corrupt and attract unfriendly things. I also told you about the chimera guardian outside the chamber with the Earth Crystals, didn’t I? Be ready! I don’t want this to be the last time we meet.” She smiled a warm, caring smile that lit up her whole face.

At that moment, Josh believed, without a doubt, that she was the mother of the whole world.

“And one more thing...” Gaia made no effort to hide the fact that she was eyeing the root clubs Sen and Josh were carrying.

Partial cracks and large divots in the gnarled wood from forceful strikes were present and telling on both... They wouldn’t last much longer for either of them.

“Before you get to the Crystal Chamber, there is a sort of... storage room. Uranus and I... we moved a lot of old things down there when all the kids and grandkids had moved out of the house and were living on Olympus most of the time. If I remember, there might be some old training weapons from when my first kids, the Titans, were just learning to use their training xiphos and dorys. They are yours if you want them. Just tell the custodian I said so... He’ll know what to do.”

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“But... weren’t Titans gigantic?” Josh blurted out before he could help himself.

Gaia smiled her motherly smile for Josh again and waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, silly! Not all the time... only when they wanted to be.” She patted him on the cheek. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

The door closed behind Josh and Sen. Gaia waved her hand from right to left as if opening a sliding window, returning her temple to its normal state. Attendants waited in the eaves of the colonnades. Flute and harp music sifted through the smoke of burnt offerings. The chanting of supplicants murmured from the far reaches of every side. Her many guards stood at attention around the perimeter.

She raised an eyebrow and glared to the right of the door the two young cultivators had just walked through. A second later, the Clone appeared, causing the classic white marble setting to glitter with his pulsating ultraviolet.

“I never said to give them weapons, Gaia.”

She glared at the Clone’s accusation. “No! You said they were warriors on a hero’s journey to collect their first Attunement! These were children armed with sticks! It was all we could do not to kill them by accident!” Her voice rose at the end, and she continued her accusatory glare at the Clone. “Machitis! Attend me!” Gaia called her majordomo.

The specter who had stood over Gaia several hours before with his scourge appeared instantly.

Without hesitation, he dropped to a knee, fist over his heart. “Mother.” His red eyes were downcast.

“Assess the strength of the two men you fought.”

“Disorganized. Ineffective. Pathetic. While the last blow had some modest strength. They were prey, not fighters.”

Raising a scornful glance at the Clone, Gaia more accused than asked, “How long have they been cultivating, six months? A year?”

“Thirty-two hours...”

Gaia’s eyes widened in shock as she gasped in surprise at the Clone’s impossible statement. Even Machitis’ swirling red eyes turned toward him as if seeking confirmation of what was said. The Clone looked away briefly and sat on the edge of a divan.

Appearing weary from his choices, the Clone raised a hand to Gaia to hold off her coming tirade. “I know... believe me, I know... However, we have no choice at this point. Things are even more dire than you know. There is no time for these two to slowly and gently acclimate to cultivating in the usual or even an accelerated time scale. Zenyak needs Senyak suitable to take command as soon as possible! Thus, I have created this fiction to attain their first Attunement. They still need to make their own connections and advancements, with us spoon-feeding them from the shadows as much as possible– without violating the Karmic requirements of self-achievement for cultivatory advancement. To fail them... is not an option... and believe me, Gaia, the remainder of our plans for them to obtain their Attunements in the Spherical Tier are significantly more dangerous.”

A sour expression fell over Gaia’s face, but The Clone noted that she had settled back into her throne, at least partially mollified by his explanation of Zenyak’s blatant omissions about the naivety of Josh and Sen to cultivation. Seeing that she had somehow begun to care for his two charges and that he hadn’t completely worn out his welcome, the Clone shore his UV features into a charming smile. Keeping his kernel of Immortal Ka tightly wrapped around the pair of cores Zenyak had torn from the genocidal harvester to keep her from being dismayed by their adharmic nature, the Clone made his ask of the Mother of Star Children.

“Gaia, I need another small favor… “

* * * * *

The door closed behind them with a finality that Josh hadn’t anticipated. Looking around with darting eyes, there was no sign of abandonment, no thick layer of dust or piles of long bleached bones in the corner. Still, the air in the winding stairway was stale and stifling. It gave the impression that the passage had been empty for an exceedingly long time.

By unspoken agreement, Senyak walked down first. He held his root cudgel tightly in his right hand. Josh did the same. Burning braziers lit the winding hall as they proceeded down. Thick, black smoke rose to a ceiling that was unseen above them.

Their enhanced hearing gave them the first warning they were not alone. The sounds of heavy clacking from far below echoed on the thick marble walls. It grew louder as they continued down. It was hard to tell what exactly was causing the sounds, but they heard no heartbeats.

Josh’s thinking shifted to an undead creature or some kind of automaton. Who am I kidding? I’m a total newb in this place. It can be anything. For God’s sake, we just met Mother Earth.

But Gaia’s final and cryptic warning about corrupted things coming from, or being attracted to, lost energy made Josh think about shambling undead things. So, as unpleasant as those were, that was where his thoughts remained.

The clacking continued to get closer as he and Sen descended. There was no indication of their detection. No sound of claws, undead or otherwise, rushing up the stairs at them. Finally, after what Josh thought was thirty minutes of steady walking down, they reached the bottom of the stairs. A wide hallway opened up before them with two open doorways on either side. A fifth and final doorway held a barred, wooden door at the end of the hall opposite them, about thirty yards away.

The clacking was coming from the first room on the left. But that wasn’t what concerned Josh at the moment. Approximately twenty yards from the winding stairway’s last step, five zombies with black skin, all emitting the blue-green glow of foxfire, quietly stood at the center of the landing. The zombies were dressed in rotting leather armor with rusted iron weapons in their hands as they moved forward toward Josh and Sen.