The rider in front of held a torch aloft, guiding our way, for the canopy was high above and thick, making the forest floor sparse and open. We raced over wide ferns and tall, spongey moss and by high, wide, imposing trees, so so large a wagon could pass through them. They seed full of endless ti, in our path silent and stern, pillars of living wood rising up out of sight.
The first few hours we rode hard and fast. As I was ever chasing the light, the trees brightened ahead of , dark shadows as I passed. After a ti, the person guiding and I caught up to Gyges and Cresida, standing hear their horses. Gyges passed his torch to Cresida, then began to fiddle with the ropes on the saddle that kept the second and third horses attached.
The rider looked back, saying, “Let’s also change to fresh horses.”
We dismounted, I did the sa as Gyges, untying the ropes, moving a fresh horse to the lead, wondering how tired the one carrying must be. The armored n, I guess, would tire them out faster. Still, not much of a break as she had to trot along behind us.
I wondered if I was tired. After all, I hadn’t slept indoors in ages. It was like I’d forgotten to check in on my body. Just go, go, go, try not to die, avoid the monsters, hide behind the shields, drop as many of the enemy soldiers as possible. Sigh.
Yeah, a little tired. Legs sore. Shoulders and wrists, too, from using the bow for hours. “Hey,” I said to the captain, “where’s Talaren?”
“Up ahead.”
“I haven’t seen him yet.”
“We’re keeping him up front.”
“Is that safe?”
“Surely the safest place.”
“From the enemy soldiers, yeah, but I was thinking more about those monsters.”
“Trust a woman to worry about things long out of sight.”
I just nodded. If not those monsters, possibly indigenous ones. Perhaps worse from the Others. I knew Gyges wasn’t very helpful, not a great military commander, but it still felt frustrated I couldn’t convince these people about the coming horrors. Actually, he was a terrible military commander, having just lost his entire army and all the lands it protected. I suppose it wasn’t really his fault. Kinda mine. I didn’t apologize, though.
Cresida yawned. Parts of her dress had black splotches on them. Probably blood from the battle. I just hadn’t been paying attention until now. She caught my gaze and shrugged. Yeah, I thought to myself, you’re the couple I’d give a baby to if I had that power.
They rode off, the torch-bearer mounted and waited on . Patting the new horse, I said, “Sorry big guy, I guess we have to move now.”
I let the horse take the lead while loosely keeping an eye on the torch ahead, losing myself in thought, trying to ignore the dancing shadows in my periphery. Talaren. Once I secured my political standing in Laemacia, I’d have to organize an expedition with him out. Sooner would be better than later. If I were the Others, trapped in that prison, I’d be shoring up my power, trying to break out. As they’d already sent out creatures, more were coming, possibly soon.
I’d have to check through the books the successive Laemacian royals had collected over the years, to see if any were histories, if any had information about the Temple and its terrible secrets. This line of thinking made realize I knew almost nothing about the nation, its customs, laws, religions. All I really knew was that they made lacquer, raised war rhinos and wore real pants with belts.
Why oh why did my kingdom have to be the one with hose?
The trees seed to be getting larger, the ground cover sparser, and all I could focus on was that torch. There were too many problems! How could I fight against otherworldly powers without any of my own? How could I overco all this war, these politics, and get these people to work together? And what would happen when Serce, the nuns, or anyone, anyone at all, discovered I was just as human as they were?
Focusing on breathing, crouching lower in the saddle, I put my hands on the horse’s neck to feel its warmth, its muscles contracting, rippling, releasing, the steady pace it kept up.
The hours went by, dawn rose before we switched to our third horses and continued on. No one spoke, not single file as we were, nor when we walked the horses, gave them rests and water, taking our own, and not when we finally broke through the forest to enter grassland, nor when the path widened, becoming a rough road. Just riding, pausing, and more riding. At so point, I took a bit of dried and salted at out of my pack and chewed quietly.
The day dragged on and on and I wished we’d been under the cover of the forest instead of the open plains. Moving along, mosquitoes weren’t an issue, but flies in the hot sun was. I batted them away when we had to go slow. At least, I told myself, I wasn’t wearing armor, but the dress was hot enough.
When sunlight ca to an end, so did our journey for a ti. The lead riders had stopped at a small copse of poplars, had stripped their horses of saddles and saddle bags, and finally let them rest.
After leading my horses to a creek running along the trees, letting them drink their fill, I took them to a fresh spot with lots of green grass and stripped off their saddles and packs, too, then joined the rest of the group. On this side of the trees, they’d started three small fires and were dumping grass into the flas, creating lots and lots of smoke.
“Is that wise,” I asked Cresida, standing beside her.
She leaned over, saying, “It’s to get rid of the biting flies.”
“Won’t the smoke tell anyone following us where we are? Not to ntion the fires.”
“You can’t see smoke at night.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s true. The fire doesn’t reflect off it at all.” I rolled my eyes in the dark, “And you certainly can’t sll the smoke.”
“They’d only be close enough to us if they wiped out the remaining Laemacians.”
“That’s my worry.” As they added wood to the fires, the flas rose, brightening the greyish-yellow smoke and lighting the area up.
“You think that’s possible?”
“It really depends. I didn’t like that captain’s tactics. He was too reactive rather than predictive.”
“From what I’ve seen, you don’t like any captain’s tactics.”
“It’s the company I’ve been keeping lately.”
She gave a bit of a glare, but said, “Well, soon you’ll have many new captains to deal with.”
“Maybe. I’m, ah, beginning to doubt Serce told the truth. None of these soldiers, nor the ones at the battle, deferred to as they would an empress.”
She tilted her head, “The emperor? Lie to you?”
“I need to talk to the mage. Give a mont.”
“Oh, if you think I’m leaving your side now, you’ve got hay inside your head.”
“What? Yeah, ok, I guess. I’m just going to ask him about magical . . . stuff.”
“Maybe I’m interested in magical stuff.”
“Co along then.”
Cresida nodded and annoyingly followed to Talaren, who was standing near the closest fire and watching a soldier toss various grasses atop it.
Tapping him on the shoulder, I said, “Hey, I need a word.”
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“Yes, my lady?” He faced , paused, and asked, “Should I call you my lady or is sothing preferable, such as ‘Your Holiness’ or ‘Your Divinity?’”
“Honestly, you should go with damned fool of a girl.” He gave a blank stare. “It doesn’t matter, I need to talk with you. Away from the soldiers.”
“As you wish.”
He and Cresida followed over a bit, nearer the horses. I thought about starting another fire, but it probably wasn’t a great idea. I did slap whatever landed on my neck though. He was looking at expectantly, so I said, “It’s about the mages, the spell they cast to contain .”
“I wasn’t there. Can you describe it?”
“About five hundred of them – I counted later, sorry – ford a large circle around , then, uh, kind of caused the air to shimr, going slightly blue, and I suddenly lost my divinity.”
“I see. That’s a rare and difficult spell. It contains the powers of a god, goddess in your case, but the cost is far more than we can produce magically. It therefore requires many mages to work together, and even then, drains our lives away if we produce the effect too long.”
“That would explain why they died.” One by one, I thought to myself, they fell around . They’d pleaded with Grand Magister Tye to hurry up, but he told them to continue. And they died just as he finished stealing my essence. I wondered, now, whether that was calculated on his part. For there would be no one left to challenge his powers.
“You didn’t kill them?” asked Cresida, eyes wide. “And here I thought . . .”
“Not intentionally, Cresida. Though I would have and wanted to.”
“Just by resisting,” said Talaren, “you contributed to their deaths. If that comforts you.” He crossed his arms. I knew he didn’t like most of those people and had different philosophies about magic, which is the main reason I hadn’t ended his life when I first discussed this with him, but I couldn’t imagine that he also wanted his fellows killed.
“Not particularly but thank you all the sa. Ok, so the reason I asked you about this was not to make feel better or remind you that all your friends are dead, but to ask if you can replicate the effect. If those others, uh, the otherworldly beings escape the Trap, can we stop them this way?”
“Five hundred of people with my abilities couldn’t stop you and I am but one man. I don’t see how it’s possible. Surely, you can, though.”
“There’s no way to amplify your powers?”
“If there were, others would have figured it out by now.”
“Right.” I walked a bit away, turned around and walked back, then repeated that. Pacing. What else was I going to do? “We need sothing Talaren. All we have now are harsh words.”
“We have you and you are a goddess.”
I looked up at him too quickly. “There are three such beings in there.” Four, I did not say, if you counted my probably very angry brother. Or maybe not, maybe he was just drunk on his ad and passing the ti. Hard to say. The problem is, he feared those Others, too. He implored to not speak our nas, nor our father’s. I froze then. “Damn!”
“What is it?”
“I spoke the na of my father’s horse.”
Talaren asked, “Your father’s horse?”
“My brother . . . I was told not to speak the nas of any of the, uh, gods I know. And I invoked my father’s horse to bear .” Sadness overca and I worried for Sleipnir – did I consign him to a horrible fate? No, I couldn’t imagine it, he could cross the empty space between worlds. But what, then, did I give them?
“You have a brother? Is he here? Perhaps he can help us.”
“Let’s not count on that. We need options. We need a solution. If you can’t neutralize their powers, can we seal up the prison? Talaren, I don’t want to go there with only hope on our side.”
“The library and the temple are key. Many runes are woven into the architecture. If I can find a book on them, perhaps I can figure out how to strengthen them. Failing that, I could try to use magic as much as possible, draining them. But I am one mage and I don’t think it’s enough.”
That gave pause. “The deaths of the mages is what weakened their prison?”
“Rather, it strengthened them. Every ti one of us uses magic, we syphon it from them. With so many of us, they could not build up the reserves to escape. I believe their prison is weakening because they attack it.”
“Then it should already be broken!”
“Why do you believe that?”
He didn’t know, probably couldn’t imagine ti from a deity’s perspective. “Ti in the Trap isn’t linear like it is here.” Bending down, I grabbed so grass, then held my hand up, dropping them one by one, “Here, each blade falls downward. The words coming out of my mouth leave but once.” I shook my head, “We don’t experience ti like you do. Our ti is more like,” I turned around, arms outstretched, “your concept of space. It’s open, you can go backwards and forwards, up and down. Talaren, they’ve had more, much more than enough ti to escape the prison if building up their strength was the only requirent.”
“Ah. Forgive , this is information I could not know. Then it has to be the runes keeping them trapped.”
“Or my brother.”
“He’s in there with them?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you bring him out when you escaped.”
Looking at the ground, I kicked sothing. Shook my head. Wrapped my arms around each other. “I was supposed to. Destroy the Temple, let him out. But I couldn’t. I . . .” Morry ca to mind then, Brin and Tread, my friends. They mattered to and if I let my brother escape, he wouldn’t care. He’d try to restore my mories and then those friends, none of the people on this planet, would matter to . Assuming he didn’t go around starting wars and joining in. I couldn’t see why he’d protect the prison, given that he’d wanted to leave. “What if it’s not him? Then it’s the runes, glyphs, magical wards, that sort of thing?”
“It’d have to be. Yet, I am struck by what you said earlier about ti. It passes by differently inside?”
“Not just inside, but for us as living beings. We don’t experience ti the way you do. Though sotis we get trapped in only one ti dinsion.”
“And you are, now, experiencing ti differently?”
Talaren got a head tilt. That question took off guard and was very, very frustrating. “No, I’m experiencing ti as you do. Currently. Right now. For the mont.” I gestured to my body, running my hands down it, “As this girl.”
“Ah, I see. What I was thinking was that the ti differential itself is the source of, or part of, the barrier keeping them imprisoned. It’s possible that sensing a world through ti as you’ve described is an impedint to escape. The mages who set up the prison must have known more about your kind than I do, and they must have taken ti differences into account.”
“Huh.” I couldn’t help but stare at him. Yeah, ok, so my body was fifteen, but I sure felt older up until this very mont when I realized I was not that bright. The kid who sits at the back of class. Damn! Why didn’t I work this out sooner? He’d told – my brother had told ! – that the only way for to save him, the only way to enter and leave the trap was for to be human. And that’s why my forr thousands of years old self had given up everything, mories, experiences, body, to cross endless voids to be here as a little girl. I spoke slowly, “Yeah, Talaren, that tracks.”
“Tracks?”
“Makes sense. Holy crap. Ok. Alright, yes, so the Others are trying to move from three dinsions of ti to one and it’s very difficult for them. And deal with the magical runes holding them in place.” My mind racing, without thinking, I said, “Should it be that difficult for them?”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing!” I was thinking like a human. One dinsion of ti, but we can imagine more. Why would it be difficult for them to go from open ti in all directions to linear ti? It’d be like learning how to live on a piece of paper and navigate being flat and then going further and living on a single piece of infinitely thin string where you can only go forwards. Like original video gas but without the jumping. anwhile, the punishnt part of the Trap would use theirselves against them, maybe even destroy them as it could not with .
Cresida took a hold of my hand, jolting out of my thoughts, “Cayce?”
“If they weren’t sending monsters here, I would think the Temple would hold them indefinitely. So, Talaren, I think they’re testing their prison and learning how to overco it. I’m worried it will only hold them for so long.” And then I realized how the runes were constructed and berated myself for not realizing it sooner, given how often it was carved into my back. “It’s the runes. They’re not in one dinsional space, but in multiple.”
“Wouldn’t that be easy for them to figure out then?”
“I don’t an each specific rune is. I an different wards would require moving into different dinsions of ti, but they wouldn’t know which from the beginning. Add consequences, like punishnts, booby traps or whatever, and that would make unraveling them slow going and painful. Talaren,” I said, walking forward and putting the hand not held by Cresida on his shoulder, “you have to figure out a way to reinforce those. And build new ones!”
“The answers can only be found at the Temple. Without their library, I am lost.”
“Then, we have to get there as quickly as possible. Except that it’s likely held by the enemy forces now.” I sighed. “Unless you’re willing to ride ten days with to my army, we have to go to the Laemacian capital.”
“If the emperor wants my power, he has no choice but to muster a force to take that temple. Therefore, it will save ti if go to Pasgardae.”
Cresida squeezed my hand, “Even though the soldiers don’t think of you as empress? What is Emperor Searcian going to do with you?”
“He wants to marry him. I suppose that’ll an endless courtship until I agree. I sure hope it doesn’t involve,” I sighed, “torture. Probably not, Serce has always been charming and kind to .”
She shook her head, “For a goddess, you’re a bit on the slow side.”
“I know, I know. I’ve been beating myself up about that all night long.”
“Only all night?”
“Just out with it.”
“We’re going to Laemacia, not as honored guests, but as Serce’s prisoners. I think you know that already. And you’re apparently the princess of Nevarrelund. I think he’s going to ransom you back or demand lands for your freedom.”
Talaren, his hands clasped together, said, “I don’t understand why you aren’t using your powers now. Surely they have returned since the battle with the mages.”
It had to happen sooner or later, but I had no idea how to respond to that. And if Talaren was questioning my divinity, even knowing I bested his mages and lted their castle, Serce probably didn’t believe in it one bit. And that would an he’d have very human plans for . I shuddered. Various answers ca to mind, that forcing them to do what I want would remove their free will, that the world has had enough of deities influencing it, that I was desperately holding the Others’ Prison intact, but they all rang hollow to , especially given the conversation we just had.
I decided not to answer, instead saying, “Talaren, when Serce returns, you have to convince him the danger is very real. If he is going to confine us in the capital, even to protect us from the enemy, we have to get through to him just how endangered his world is. We need an army to get to that Temple.”
He nodded at , but I could see the judgent in his eyes.
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