Tallah

Even through the murk, the scale of the city impressed. Grefe wasn’t a ruin as Sil had expected. It wasn’t some tucked-away fortress ready to crumble.

What came to view as they crossed the statue-guarded bridge was a metropolis built by and for winged beings. Jutting, crenellated platforms hung over the chasm, once serving as some kind of gardens or plazas if the pottery on display was any indication. Those preceded the many arched, high-windowed dwellings sculpted into the flesh of the rock and arrayed one atop the other. She was reminded of bunches of grapes on vines.

Intricate sculptures decorated whatever space wasn’t used for living. The sheer excess would have made Aztroa Magnor pale by comparison.

What had looked from afar as a single wall of city proved a trick of the light. The cavern twisted and Grefe moulded itself upon it, embracing all of its deeper ravines and recesses, spreading away from the lit up crystal spire. It occupied every nook, every cranny, every gigantic stalactite hanging from the high ceiling. Stairs and bridges stretched on impossible struts between the dwellings, giving the desolated sites an impression of vibrant activity.

Tallah was less awed by the sight. Fireflies flitted around her, more popping into existence by the moment, her heat increasing.

“Something’s watching us,” she explained. Her long strides brought them quickly across the bridge, the far end laying already in sight.

“I figured.” Sil touched the potion pouch for reassurance.

Further on into the city, white webs stretched between buildings like a sheet thrown over an unused room. The sight and promise of them made her skin crawl.

“Why is that here?” Vergil asked.

The road split near the end of the bridge and wound around the spire. In the fork, two more statues greeted them.

And these were of humans. Man and woman, side by side, naked as all the rest. The man had his right hand up in greeting.

“Peculiar,” Sil agreed.

“You don’t understand.” Vergil halted at the feet of the two figures. They were taller than the rest. Behind them some sort of symbols were etched into the spire, shining in shifting rainbow colours. “This shouldn’t be here.”

“I agree. Why are humans greeting us?”

Again, Vergil shook his head. “These two shouldn’t be here. It doesn’t make sense.” He pointed a trembling finger at them. Whatever else he had to say got stuck in his throat as Ludwig neared.

Seemed odd behaviour to Sil. The two humans represented were nothing special to look at. Medium features. Long hair on the woman. Awkward posing. Nothing obviously grandiose about them. But still, Vergil stared as if he’d seen a bloody ghost.

“Out with it,” Tallah snapped at him. “Why is this important?”

Vergil’s eyes darted to Ludwig and then to Tallah’s, seeking approval. When she nodded, he went on, “They’re from where I am. This was on a plaque humans sent into space thousands of years ago. I’ve seen the engraving at least a thousand times. It hung in the museum deck.”

Tallah sniffed in annoyance. “Might be coincidence. Still, weird that there are humans here. You didn’t mention this, old man.”

“Would you have believed it?” Ludwig replied. He stared at Vergil. “You are… from here?”

“No. Definitely not from here.”

“Don’t ask him too many questions, old man, unless you mean to be perplexed for the rest of your life. The boy’s an Other. Bloody useless at giving answers.” Tallah motioned them all forward. “Don’t gape. You look senile.”

“You dropped this as if it’s nothing.” Ludwig looked faint.

Vergil shrunk back from the intensity of the stare he received.

“She does that,” Sil agreed. “I thought we weren’t talking about Vergil’s history?”

Tallah shrugged. Her eyes searched the approaching vista. Beyond the spire a new structure came into view, hanging on a netting of smaller bridges and walkways like a great spider in its web. This looked more like something for people with no wings to visit. A welcoming embassy? Maybe?

“Second odd thing Vergil’s done since we came here,” Tallah explained. “Third, if you count the book. The professor’s not that big of a fool not to connect things.” She gave Ludwig a long glare. “For now, he’s earned some trust. The place is real and it is alien. Let’s not make a net of our fingers and hide beneath it. If there are things to be learned here, it’s best we all have the same facts.”

Ludwig’s face was caught somewhere between incredulity, offended dignity, and a kind of beached fish.

“Breathe, Master Angledeer,” Sil said. “One mystery at a time. If I remember right, you said you knew for certain the girl was alive. We’re here and there seems to be a terribly large area to search. How would we go about this?”

It took some time for the old man to recover from his shock. Tallah fired off a couple of fireflies into the high shadows among the crenellated towers of this edifice. Dull pops resounded but she only swore.

“Nimble critter,” she murmured. A second, halfhearted attempt got the same result. “I expect more will be waiting somewhere ahead.”

“Do I want to know?” Sil asked.

“Probably not. I expect you’ll faint the moment you see one of these spiders in full light.” She gave her an evil grin. “Or should I describe it?”

“Do that and I may crack you one over the head.”

“And face a spider big as a horse with only these two for help?”

“Tallah!”

Her evil cackle cut off when Ludwig finally finished fumbling with a box from his complicated backpack. He opened it reverently, lifting a shining blue necklace from its confines. It had a thumb-sized sapphire embedded in a silver cage. Without the caress of any breeze, it tugged sideways once up in the air.

“You blighter!” Tallah reached for the pendant and cooed her appreciation. With some hesitation, Ludwig handed it to her. “You decrepit old bastard! I should’ve raided your home a long time ago. I could buy a small army with your trinkets.”

“Is that another shard?” Vergil asked. “It doesn’t shine like the other one.”

“Is it a shard?” Sil shared in the confusion as she gawked at the pendant. Runes were engraved on the gemstone, but so tiny that she had to resist the temptation of digging out her loupe.

Ludwig cleared his throat and ignored Tallah’s jab. “This is a sympathetic binding. It is, indeed, a shard of an Illum Ascendi crystal. Of the Aztroa Ascendi, more precisely.”

“I thought you’d gone daft to still believe the girl lived.” Tallah held out the pendant and watched it tug to the right of their path, towards the mess of webs glittering in the light of the spire. Her grin turned feral. “This is attuned to Catharina, isn’t it? She wouldn’t have given it to you. You’ve held out on us from the start.”

If her words stung in any way, the old man didn’t show it. “I feared you would figure it in an instant as you just did. Yes, the pendant is attuned to the empress, blessed may she be. Returning it would probably absolve you of any crime. I expect she’d also gift you a duchy in Aztroa’s shadow.”

“I don’t follow. Why didn’t you do this?” It all sounded like bluster to Sil. “If your goal is to return to the empire’s grace, why not just buy your way in?”

“He’s killed whoever the empress trusted with her shards and this,” Tallah said. “Didn’t you?”

“Quite so, yes. The Empress did send someone to retrieve the girl soon after my exile. She’d given them a set of shards and this insurance pendant. I caught wind of it and… well.” He spread his hands out in a gesture that said more than his words.

“And you wouldn’t allow anyone else the glory of this discovery. Far as Catharina’s concerned, her rescue party was lost on the way, same as your first group. I assume this thing tugs a too direct line to manage the labyrinth.”

“Quite so, yes. I've tried.”

“How many did you get killed in the trying?”

His silence answered the question well enough. Sil looked at him in a whole different light. If Tallah was callous, the old bastard was downright evil in his obsession. Whatever story he’d fed them in Valen now seemed polluted, tinged with lies and omissions that she expected would show him in a very different light.

“I would like to restate that you’re a malevolent old fart,” she said.

“Be that as it may, we’re here now and the time for secrets is past.” He drew himself taller. “As you can see, the pendant will draw to her as long as she and the empress both draw breath. You’re welcome to it at the end of things. I do not want it back.”

Only Sil saw the glint in Tallah’s eye, she was certain of it. The vengeful hunger that the sorceress kept under patient control reared its head for a heartbeat. It’d last come to light when they’d found the passage into Anna’s domain.

Any enchantment, no matter how clever or complex, could be undone and reversed.

Ludwig had just promised Tallah a weapon the kinds of which he could scarcely imagine for a goal that would shatter his zealous heart.

If you could know at all times where your greatest enemy lay, how much easier would it be to cut out their heart?