The Maze had rapidly grown more and more uncomfortable.
Ever since reaching the portal, it felt like the air had shifted. Some aura seeped into the land, like an observer, constantly breathing down on them as it watched from an outside perspective. The few lesser servants he had sent around to explore and safeguard the area surrounding the portal, those not connected to the larger mass, vanished almost instantly. As if that observer were actively upset at their efforts to remain together and was pushing them apart.
The sooner they got out of here, the better.
Arkk got the feeling that the Maze didn’t like them not being lost.
But the time was almost upon them. Morvin was fiddling with the highlands portal frame, following directions from a lesser servant which was doing its best to explain what Zullie was explaining to Arkk. The degrees of separation, even with the servant mentally bound to Arkk, made him a little nervous about their odds of success.
But it had to work.
Arkk watched, breath held, as Morvin activated the highlands portal.
The runes on the portal in the Maze started glowing.
Whether through a blessing of Xel’atriss, bridging the gap home, the Fickle Wheel tilting in their favor, or Unknown, the Enigma deciding they had outstayed their welcome in is realm, or sheer hard work on their part—the portal was working.
The membrane stretched across the crystalline archway. Its silvery, liquid-like material shimmered and rippled, stilling after a moment with a thankfully familiar view. Zullie held out a hand, inspecting the portal for a long moment. Eventually, she gave him a nod, confirming its stability. Holding hands with her and the scrying team—he wasn’t going to trust their makeshift rope through realms while the Maze was being so hostile—they all stepped forward as one.
Morvin stood, ready to greet them on the other side. He looked about as relieved as Arkk felt. “Welcome back,” he said. “Glad you could get back. We weren’t exactly sure what happened. I had theories based on the evidence left behind, but those were really just guesses.”
Arkk was well aware that he was inordinately lucky. Having all of them appear within the Maze together, bound to that displaced command center, kept him from losing anyone to the strange topography. They hadn’t wandered off before realizing the scope of the situation. And, with endless capacity for summoning servants, they had managed to escape with relative ease. Had anyone else been in that position, no one in the Maze would have been seen again.
“Excellent work,” Arkk said, clapping a hand on Morvin’s back. “Both in selecting the stone and getting it out here when things went awry.”
“Indeed,” Zullie said. “Keep it up and you might just make senior junior assistant by the end of the year.”
Morvin’s smile at Arkk’s praise turned to a puzzled frown. “I wasn’t aware there was a hierarchy.”
“We can discuss company structure later,” Arkk said, cutting off whatever Zullie had been about to say. “Fortress Al-Mir is under attack. Right now, it is just the airships that have been attacking Al-Lavik, but they’re being significantly more effective against the wider target. But it won’t be just that for long,” he said, turning to Harvey.
The flopkin nodded his head, peering into the crystal ball clutched in his small hands. “I’d guess we have about an hour? Maybe more. Maybe less. Depends on how they navigate the narrowed bend ahead of them.”
The crystal ball displayed a worrying sight. They had been concerned over the surprising lack of Empire soldiers at Elmshadow, wondering where they had gone off to. The crystal ball held the answer.
They were approaching Fortress Al-Mir via large ships traveling up the river. They must have been out at sea, perhaps even headed toward Cliff, when the airships decided to bypass his tower and Elmshadow to directly siege Fortress Al-Mir.
“Right. Harvey, Camilla, Luthor, you’re on messenger duty. Once we’re back at the fortress, I’ll teleport you around. Whoever you appear in front of, inform them of the approaching Empire soldiers. Tug on the link as soon as you’re finished and you’ll be teleported again. Once done, you’ll be on the lower levels, the safest place in the fortress at the moment. Continue standard scrying duties.”
The three gave him affirming nods, leading to Arkk motioning toward the teleportation circles.
As they moved, Arkk turned to his spellcasters. “Morvin, Zullie—”
“I have an idea,” Zullie interrupted. “If we—”
“No ideas,” Arkk said, voice far harsher than usual. “I need things that work. Not things that blow up in our faces.”
Zullie’s shoulders deflated as she turned aside.
“I have Kia and Claire in the Heart chamber. They’re on full-time Heart guarding duty. If you can erect a layered shield—just the regular old one we used at the start of Al-Lavik’s defense—that would free at least one of them up to help elsewhere.”
“But—”
“No buts. Morvin, you’re in charge of keeping her on task.”
Morvin sighed but nodded, resigned to his duties. At his side, Zullie did not look pleased. Perhaps owing to her being the principal cause of their detour through the Maze, however, she did not protest, merely frowning in Morvin’s direction before stalking after the scrying team toward the teleportation rituals.
“If she does something you think is dangerous or foolhardy,” Arkk said, leaning in to whisper to Morvin before he could follow, “tug on the link and I will deal with it.”
Even if he had to throw her into a dungeon cell for the duration of the attack. There would be no more incidents caused by his side. They had enough to deal with from the Empire.
Morvin nodded, hurrying after Zullie. Arkk remained for a moment more. He looked around the highlands portal chamber as a lesser servant scaled the portal frame. There were no guards or defenders. If that keystone hadn’t led to the Maze—hadn’t led to them—Morvin could have easily opened the doors for anything. Given the relative desertion of most other realms, it likely wouldn’t have meant much, but all it would take was one hostile creature like the Anvil wyrm slipping through to kill Morvin and leave the portal open for a flood of fresh enemies. At least until the glowstones powering the portal ran dry.
Depending on what came through, they could have proved near impossible to displace. Especially while he was fighting a war on another front and trapped in another realm.
It hadn’t happened. But it could have. That alone was reason enough to keep Zullie from making another mistake.
Arkk caught the keystone, tossed down by the lesser servant, and immediately headed toward the rituals.
The Eternal Empire thought they could assault him without even a ground force to occupy his defenders? No longer. The Holy Light’s avatar taught Hannah and Sylvara how to hurt the airships. Between him, Agnete, and now Priscilla, those eggs would soon become a non-issue. Protective magics around their weak points would halt bombardments. They had an hour to solve their current issues before an expected force of six thousand Empire soldiers descended upon the Cursed Forest.
If there was one upside to the approaching situation, it was that the Empire’s soldiers would be forced to march across the relatively massive Cursed Forest, slowed further by whatever bombardment and defenses he could erect before they departed their ships. They would arrive weary and exhausted with no time to set up camp to recuperate. Unfortunately, with the constant battle his forces had been engaged with since they started marching Al-Lavik toward Woodly Rhyme, it was more of an evening of the playing field than an advantage toward him.
His men were tiring. He could see it in every swing of an orc’s scythe, every thrust of a Shieldbreaker’s spear. Even the machines from the Anvil were slower now than they had been before. Arkk hadn’t thought beings like them would be capable of tiring, but unless something else was going on, they were.
With him back, with him able to use his localized omniscience to properly organize the defense, he hoped to buy shifts of rest for at least some of his forces. And, once the opportunity presented itself, shift their defense into an offense.
He had experienced quite enough assaults from foreign nations. Evestani was already defeated, with their capital captured by Ilya and their avatar dead. It was time to do the same to the Eternal Empire.
The first order of business was finding out why Alma kept pinging him. The little tugs on the link had been going on for a while now. Almost the entire time he had been in the Maze. She clearly had something for him, something urgent but not something that posed an imminent threat to her.
She was trying to be unobtrusive, not drowning out any other tugs on the link. Yet she was persisting.
But she was also still at Al-Lavik, seated on the floor in the small chamber that held the Holy Light’s basin. Whatever she wanted likely involved the Holy Light’s avatar.
Arkk left her there for the moment—he thought of teleporting her to the ritual room, but depending on what was wrong, her presence at the basin might be a necessity. He didn’t have enough information to make a judgment just yet. But that could easily be resolved.
Fortress Al-Mir’s temple room had changed once again.
The first and most notable change was the Permafrost’s statue. A miniaturized blizzard swirled around the ice carving of the dragon. Its glowing blue eyes slowly tracked him as he teleported into the room. The Permafrost wasn’t the only statue to have changed. It seemed like every other statue was no longer static as they had been before.
The Fickle Wheel tilted and turned, rotating in place. The dark tendrils emerging from the door behind Xel’atriss twitched and squirmed. A fire roared around the base of the Burning Forge’s anvil. Wind, unfelt throughout the rest of the temple, picked up and jostled the Cloak of Shadows’ wisp-like cloak. Each of them now had some small aspect animated.
And there were new additions. Four more pedestals were filled. A tall, armored figure with a spectral cape and elongated limbs stood at one. They stood in place, locked in a pirouette, with only the tail-ends of the cape fluttering. A veil obscured the face.
The Veiled Dancer. Deity of sensuality, arts, and flow in all forms—water, air, words, and, of course, dancing.
Unknown, the Enigma… existed. The pedestal was there. Arkk could tell that something was occupying it. But what, exactly, he couldn’t tell. His eyes slid from its form, unable to process what was there. He couldn’t identify a single aspect of it, not even a vague shape, color, or size.
A shirtless, muscled man rode atop a rearing horse on the next pedestal. Even the most fit of his orcs would find themselves envious of the man’s build. Dark red liquid flowed endlessly over both the man and the horse. The Red Horse. God of war and physical prowess.
The final pedestal was somewhat unpleasant to look at. A blob of flesh. Rows of breasts and a belly hidden beneath of titanic proportions. Its corpulent body, sessile due to its own size, spilled over the sides of its pedestal.
The Bloated Mother. Deity of life, fertility, and disease.
That only left a single empty pedestal. That of the Whispering Gale.
Based on the process of elimination, he was fairly certain he could add the Gale at any time, simply by using the keystone borrowed from the Anvil.
For the time being, however, Arkk moved to the statue of the Holy Light. The shimmering light making up the clothes seemed so much more vibrant now, cycling through dozens of bright colors instead of just the pure white it had been. He teleported one of the candles the avatar had given him to his hand and, with a small flame spell, lit it. They were supposed to alert the avatar, allowing them to meet, if not face-to-face.
It didn’t take long for the statue to come to life.
“Arkk. You’re back.” The avatar did not sound pleased. “This is… not good. This is really not good.”
“Is there something you need to tell me?” Arkk asked, presuming that was why Alma kept pinging him.
The statue shifted, knuckles digging into its temples. “Yes,” Lyra said. “I needed to tell you not to return, fool. Do you realize what you’re doing? What you’ve done?”
“You’re speaking of the Calamity,” Arkk said, looking around the temple, eying the fluttering banners of the Almighty Glory and the gentle rise-and-fall of the Eternal Silence’s chest. “I suppose I have some idea. I imagine the Calamity is weaker than ever before. The temple is populated. One of the three traitor avatars is dead. You all were holding the Calamity together, weren’t you?”
“You knew and you still…”
“I’ve seen the effects of your Calamity,” Arkk said, teleporting a short stool into the chamber. He had been walking for the last hour. If he were to be stuck in a conversation for the moment, he would multitask and use the opportunity for a quick rest. “Entire worlds turned to wastelands. Do you know how many must have died slow and painful deaths?”
“Don’t you dare judge,” the statue snapped, pointing a finger toward Arkk. “You don’t know what it was like. Magic levels started increasing. Everyone thought it was a great boon. Feats of magic were being performed on a level never before seen. A wave of the hand and all problems could be solved.
“Except me. I knew. You’ve seen the other worlds.”
“Magic toxicity,” Arkk said with a nod of his head. “Something about plants is different from animals and people. Too much magic kills them.”
“It is a bit more complicated than that, but yes. At the smallest scale, plants are rigid and unable to accommodate magic beyond a certain amount.” The statue’s head shook, snapping from one side to the other. “I tried to warn others. Tried to explain the problem, tried to generate support for possible solutions. But, in the end, my past self could only find two allies.”
“The Heart of Gold and the Almighty Glory.”
“Their avatars. The gods themselves—I hesitate to say that they do not care, but they certainly do not operate on a level that we do. Glory-hog and I came up with the Solution. Greedy Gold joined. The Heart of Gold was the key to it all, gold, you see, does not tarnish. That concept expanded to encompass the barrier between realms, keeping it safe.” A low, sorry chuckle slipped from the statue. “Glory is all about the pride and nobility. But I imagine my golden counterpart only loaned his abilities once he realized that he would have a whole world with next to no competition to call his own.”
“So you cut them off,” Arkk said. “Condemned millions. Billions? More?”
“We saved as many as we could,” the avatar snapped. “Brought as many to this world as we could. People died, yes, but only so that more could be saved. The barrier was the only thing keeping this world from ending up like them. Do you comprehend how many people you will be killing in the coming decades? The last bastion, the solution, lain to ruin because of you.”
Arkk nodded his head, closing his eyes. “How long have we got? Anything more precise than decades?”
“You don’t have many dams up there in Mystakeen, do you?”
“I… don’t think so?” Arkk said, confused at the odd change in topics.
“We have a number in Chernlock. It is a desert, you see. Manipulating the rivers and lakes is vital to our continued survival. With proper construction, a relatively thin wall can retain a truly massive amount of water.” The statue held its hands together in front of its face. It poked a finger forward, making a hole in the wall. “But even a tiny hole will lead to disaster. At first, only a small trickle of water escapes, but that water rushes through, forced by all the weight of the water behind it, tearing away at the wall around it.” More fingers poked forward, breaking the wall. “Until the entire dam fails and an entire lake’s worth of water rushes down, flooding anything near the river.”
“I take it this is a metaphor?”
“We’re at the point of that first tiny hole. Even if I were to measure the amount of magic that is certainly making its way into this realm at this very moment, I can’t estimate when that hole will widen or when the entire barrier will come crashing down.”
“And it cannot be repaired, even temporarily?” Arkk asked.
“As I said, the Heart of Gold is the main key to this solution. Unless a new avatar is appointed in a hurry—and they never are—and we find that avatar, and that avatar proves at least as adept as his predecessor in utilizing his powers, and he proves willing to assist instead of blinded by greed, and—”
“No, I take it.”
“Not likely,” Lyra corrected. “At least, not with the Heart of Gold. But I haven’t been sitting idle in the last few hundred years. I’m the avatar of enlightenment, after all. There are other powers out there. Some far more adept at construction than the Heart of Gold.”
“Agnete,” Arkk whispered, eyes widening in realization. That was why she kept asking for the other avatar. It was likely why the Abbey of the Light went to such lengths to accommodate or subjugate their purifiers. She must have been plotting this for some time. Plotting to cut out the avatar of Gold. If Arkk had handed Agnete over earlier or killed the avatar of Gold without opening a bunch more portals, it probably would have worked.
He frowned, wondering why she hadn’t told him earlier, only to immediately realize… He was here trying to break down the Calamity entirely. Lyra had either found out, perhaps from Vrox, or simply surmised based on Vezta’s existence. Either way, she would have wanted Agnete without telling him why.
“I didn’t expect the barrier to be quite so damaged,” the avatar said, all but confirming his suspicions. “But if anyone can fix it, it would be the avatar of the Burning Forge. Arkk, once again, this time with the fate of the world at stake, I implore you to hand over Agnete.”
Arkk leaned back in his chair, staring at the maze-like pattern of the temple ceiling. It was a solution. Likely the easiest one. But he had promised Vezta that he would bring down the Calamity. If Agnete helped repair it, it would likely be stronger than ever. Perhaps even impossible to bring down at a later date.
“Could you call off the Eternal Empire?” Arkk asked without looking back down at the statue. He teleported Agnete around, dropping her in front of an egg that looked near to bursting. Priscilla was freezing another. Sylvara, with his assistance, was able to visit the surface to try to attack the airships, but the main one seemed especially focused on bombarding any source of the rainbow-hued light attacks.
When he realized that Lyra wasn’t responding, he glanced down, frowning at the sheepish look on the statue’s face. An odd expression for a god to make, even if it was only a depiction.
“Avatar?”
“I… Remember how I said that her whole thing is pride? Well, I think you’ve damaged some of that pride. I can’t get the Empress to respond to me right now. She might be a bit upset with you.”
“Great,” Arkk muttered.
“It might go against your instincts, but if you would please avoid killing the glory hog, it would be best for the world.”
Arkk could only shake his head, sighing. “We’re in a war here. I make no promises.”
“Arkk—”
“And my answer remains the same with regards to handing over Agnete. Agnete is a free woman, she can go where she chooses. Thus far, she has shown no inclination toward returning to you.”
“Arkk, be reasonable—”
“I have a question for you, Lyra Zann. Assuming you repair the dam, what happens when it overflows? When the water level reaches the top and then keeps going up?”
“What? What are you—”
“As you said, I’m not too familiar with dams. But I can’t imagine anything good. That water would rush past over the top, damaging the structure. Maybe it would be slower, since it doesn’t have all that weight behind it, but it would damage it nonetheless. Or am I wrong?”
“That was a metaphor, Arkk, not a literal explanation of the situation.”
“So when all the other realms fill to the bursting point, your barrier will remain in place?”
The avatar did not respond. The statue shifted, adopting a frown as it stared at Arkk. But there was no response. Which, Arkk decided, was an answer all the same.
“I have another question, Lyra Zann. When did demons become a thing?”
“Demons? Are you still having demon problems?”
“Not problems, per se. Solutions, maybe. Though I intend to kill this demon if only to avenge Leda.”
“Arkk. Demons aren’t a solution. A single demon, given the opportunity, would destroy the entire world all on its own. It would do so for no other reason than because it could, because it was bored. They could do it too because of what they are.”
“Yes, they break the laws of magic. So I’ve heard—”
“Heard from who? That’s wrong. Utterly wrong. Every one of them acts somewhat like an avatar. Powerful avatars. Think on the level of Agnete, were she to go rogue, sweeping her flames across entire nations. They don’t break magic,” she said with a scoff, as if the thought were absurd.
Arkk folded his arms, frowning. Zullie had told him that. It… well, it wasn’t much of a surprise to find out that she had been wrong, especially about a subject outside her fixations. “That isn’t what I wanted to question anyway,” Arkk said with a shake of his head. “When did demons become a thing?”
“I’m not sure. Since perpetuity. Why does that matter?”
“I’m no avatar, certainly no avatar of knowledge, yet… I am willing to bet that demons became a thing shortly—perhaps shortly on a vast time scale—before you started noticing those problems with the magic toxicity.” Arkk clasped his fingers together, staring at the statue. “You had to enact the Calamity because they killed their god.
“And, if I am correct… there may be a solution there that does not involve building your dam taller and taller until it collapses under its own weight.”