She might have fallen, had the gemstone not failed first.
Laruna became aware of the high-pitched whine in front of her forehead when it crescendoed in a sudden pop. The stress of a dragonfire bath and an ancient dragon’s rage and confusion was too much for a crystal that had heretofore been used primarily for cowing lesser dragon-kin. The remains of the Eye of the Dragon showered in an amber fountain all around her, and the dragon’s memories and thoughts drained away. She tried to hold on to the ideas but it was like snatching at the receding tide, and all she managed to clutch were impressions of hatching from an egg and the primal joy of hunting wild boar and frying bacon in situ. Even that slipped away quickly, and she was left staring up at an equally confused dragon. The great reptile regarded her with wide eyes, and its scales were shifting in hue from a brilliant red to a warm yellow.
Though Laruna’s connection with the dragon was gone, the great dragon’s memories had carved a canyon through her mind when they flowed away, and in it she could see the contours of the dragon’s perspective. A name hovered at the edges of her recollection, like a name she’d heard of a distant aunt having, and it felt like it would fit.
“I see you… Kulxak,” the mage said.
Kulxak’s yellow color took on a metallic, golden quality for a split second at the mention of her name. Laruna saw hesitation in the dragon’s great emerald eyes, but also a spark of comprehension. The dragon understood the Human on a basic level, even if it didn’t necessarily speak the language. It reminded Laruna of the time she’d bartered with an Arakian peddler; the man didn’t speak a word of the Imperial tongue, but through body language and tone he still managed to fleece her out of half her purse for a fake grimoire. Or…
She glanced back at Gaist. The weaponsmaster gave her a barely perceptible nod that somehow conveyed that he was confident in her ability and that she had chosen the right path, and perhaps even that he was a little proud of her. If the doppelganger could convey all that in a nod, Laruna could convey that she very sincerely did not want to fight a dragon using body language as well. The pyromancer spread her hands wide in supplication. “I see you, and you see me. Right, Kulxak?”
She took another step forward. “Peace,” she told the dragon. “I want peace, and I think you do too. You’re protecting something. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t want to hurt it.”
Kulxak stared at her, sparks drifting from her flaring nostrils with each labored breath.
“I just want to find a way forward.”
Laruna noticed the dragon glance back to Gorm and the others.
“They do too. We just want to move on.”
The dragon regarded her again for a long while. Then she nodded her massive head, as though some decision had been reached, and shifted her weight. With painful effort, the dragon unfurled enough to give the pyromancer a glimpse of her treasure.
“What is it?” shouted Jynn.
“Is it a hoard?” asked Heraldin.
“Must be eggs,” Gorm said. “Look how hard it fought to get back here.”
“It might be,” Laruna murmured, craning her neck. There were seven piles of oblong, milky-white shapes, each with a larger specimen sitting behind a neat stack of smaller ones. The objects had an egg-ish quality, but their faint translucence and the way they stood on their short ends put her in mind of the eggs of insectoids rather than reptiles. Their shapes were wrong too, irregular and, in the case of the larger specimens, broader on the top. As she drew closer, she grew more certain that these weren’t eggs at all. Most eggs, she was confident, didn’t have pectorals or breasts.
She looked up at the dragon. “What are they?” she asked.
“Odd stonework is nothing new. It’s just part of some threatening dungeon architecture.” Kaitha told herself. She tried another deep breath, but it came out a rattling hybrid of laugh and sob that told the rational part of Kaitha that the unsettled bits were still driving the chariot. “You’ve seen dozens of these. Maybe hundreds. Standard operating procedure for class B dungeons over five hundred years old. TDAs are just part of the job.”
Just as poisonous insects display bright colors under threat or venomous reptiles flash their crests to intimidate rivals, ancient tombs and dungeons are often outfitted with old mechanisms whose only purpose was to ward off spelunkers and grave robbers. Any hero knew it was a safe bet that a long-lost culture willing to fund the construction of doors that open based on the position of giant mechanical star maps or sunlight shining through an array of intricate crystals would have also made investments in things like spring-loaded crushing ceilings, dart-flinging tripwires, and stone guardian golems. Similarly, chances were good that any dead civilization that hadn’t thought to implement such deadly traps had long ago had the last vestiges of its existence dismantled, hauled off, and sold to the highest bidder.
So it was that anyone on Arth who wanted a career in heroics, or at least a long one, couldn’t lose her nerve at the sight of threatening dungeon architecture, or TDAs in the vernacular of the guild. Most heroes viewed them as a useful tool for identifying weak links in a party; one knew it was time to rethink the engagement strategy if the newblood was going wobbly-kneed at the sight of rune-encrusted interlocking disks the size of city gates, skull-faced doors that opened along the hinge of the jaw, or any of the other mysterious constructs that ancients had used as a way to keep future generations off the lawn of the dead. Kaitha had seen plenty of TDAs, and had judged more than a few colleagues on how well they handled themselves in the presence of otherworldly edifices.
But now… now she found it almost impossible to keep up her professional stoicism in the face of, or perhaps the faces of, whatever she was looking at.
She could think of several explanations that might account for the glowing water, from resonant sorcery to tiny, bioluminescent organisms living in the strange flow. But unless nature had also granted the tiny creatures bioantigravitance, that couldn’t explain how the water was flowing up, and to the sides, and in all directions through the narrow passage she had been led into. Its thin, even streams formed a web of azure light that covered all parts of the surrounding tunnel. And even if she could explain the water’s blatant disregard for the law of gravity, that didn’t come close to accounting for the shapes it was twisting into.
No, not the shapes. The people. The shimmering water running through the ancient channels formed very clear figures, each no taller than her forearm and drawn in lines of blue light. And they moved, working and walking and speaking as the water switched from channel to channel in swift, staccato jumps that reminded Kaitha of raindrops running down a windowpane. Around and above her, a city of watery ghosts of every shape and size walked and shopped and smithed and went about their silent lives. The streams babbled with high, tinkling notes, and behind them, the stones hummed like an orchestra warming up.
Despite her initial suspicion that the images were a TDA, none of the figures were actually threatening her. There was no more violence on the walls than in the average market of Andarun. In fact, there was considerably less of it, as none of the fluid people appeared to be shouting, brawling, or trying to sell blood-stained goods off the back of suspicious-looking wagons. It was as peaceful a scene as one could hope for, yet watching the walls filled Kaitha with a deep dread.
The dancing images showed a time before the Agekeepers were the Agekeepers. She could tell in part because the stocky Humans were in the minority to the Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes flowing through the hallway. Even more telling, she could see many strange figures in the crowds; tall and barrel-chested, like Dwarves stretched to Elven height.
The Sten.
Something about their presence on the wall made her uneasy in a way that the remnants of their artifacts and architecture never had. It was one thing to know that they once moved among the races of Man, it was another to watch one buy a bundle of carrots from a glowing effigy of a Gnome. And as she watched the figures move, something tugged at the back of her mind; a memory of a memory, a whisper of something forgotten.
The idea brought the panic welling back up from her hidden depths. “I don’t want to remember,” she murmured, almost reflexively. “Don’t make me remember.”
One of the Sten, as though having heard her utterance, looked at the ranger and smiled. With a few steps he grew to three times his size, as though stepping to the foreground of a painting, scattering droplets as he blocked out the figures behind him. He gave a friendly wave and beckoned down the hall, as though she had asked for directions. As though there was anywhere else to go.
“N-no,” Kaitha gasped. “No, stop.”
The Sten’s broad features grew softer, almost sympathetic, and in the expression Kaitha saw the hint of a smile on a dying Troll’s face. He died for me. He came back.
And that settled it. She nodded to the Sten, not to say that she trusted him, but to let him know that the professional was back in charge, and she could handle whatever the aquatic light show would throw at her. Slowly and deliberately, she started down the hall, ignoring the screams of protest from the voice deep within her.
Don’t make me remember! I don’t want to remember!
“I don’t want to make you remember,” High Scribe Pathalan whispered. Sweat beaded on his brow as he stared with sleepless, bloodshot eyes at the scripture he had just written. The high scribe sat at the epicenter of a storm of papers, every one of them covered in similar denials of recollection. Even as he considered the countless lines of protestations scribbled across the pages, another scripture seared across his mind. Reflexively, his hand jerked out and scrawled.
No! Stop! The other way! I don’t want to remember!
“What other way?” sobbed Pathalan. His mind searched frantically for something, anything, he could do differently. Anything to get the blaze of angry protests to cease. He had to—
No. That was madness. Pathalan set down the quill, slapped his unshaven cheeks, and reminded himself that insanity was an occupational hazard for those who worked in the Temple of the All Mother. If he actually started believing what the goddess said, he’d wind up wearing a jacket with sleeves that tied together.
He needed something to calm his nerves. Tea. Tea always helped. He dug a small, silver bell from one of the drifts of parchment lying across his desk and rang it.
