Dragon (S)Layers Ch. 56

"As well you should have," said the fat man. "How is my favorite soldier?"

Amaranth winced. Her hands clenched into white knuckled fists and through barely restrained tears, she said. "He's dead, my lord. W- We were cut down to the last. . ."

That settled a much deeper wariness over the entire room, Yamma could feel the hesitation and doubt in the Councilors. Through it all the Elder simply watched and listened, surveying the blonde woman with calm detachment befitting his position.

The knight shifted her weight uneasily. "All of us. . . .we were all killed." The Northerner opened his mouth but Ammy cut him off. "I was- I was Chosen. . . .b- By the Holy Elisandra." Her facade cracked and a single tear rolled down her sharp cheek. She turned to the full blooded elf. "I am sorry, Elder– I– I failed."

He drew in a slow breath. "Was Richard's body found?"

Yamma turned over an image of the mess she'd found of the werewolf and the broken pieces of plate she found beside his corpse. The wreckage of the forest around him spoke of a titanic battle he'd waged with the dragon's daughter, including the broken hand and a half sword, battered shield and several pulverized rocks that'd been powdered in their fight. For all of his effort and strength, though, his adversary hadn't left him in a fully recognizable state– Yamma almost gave it all to Ammy but she withheld the most important parts, suppling her with the tangential moments instead.

Surprisingly the knight reached for the memory, she dug around for it and tried to find the undeniable proof of Richard's fate. Was she insane or just masochistic? Yamma held it back tighter than before and pushed what she'd seen until the woman stopped asking about it. The battle of wills took place at the speed of thought but to Yamma it was agonizingly slow; she was in so many places in the half-elf's memory at once she could have supplied the woman with every possible outcome of what she was going to say.

She almost did, just to see what would happen.

Amaranth nodded quietly, "Yes, Elder. He escaped along the trail– I found the–. . . .the-"

"Go on, child."

"The pieces, Elder."

The northerner guffawed. "I've seen that man wrestle bears! No chance he'd be brought low by some woman. Not even a lycan–"

"She wasn't a lycan!" Amaranth snapped. "She was something else, something much worse. He broke her sword, her shield, even parts of her armor and she kept coming. She overpowered him."

The Elder considered her for a moment and Yamma felt something; a twinge in his magic, a change. The magic snaked out around the table, engulfing it as he began to walk a slow loop around the table. "Tell me of this woman, child." His voice held no warmth.

"She was short, perhaps up to my chest, and- and. . ." Yamma filled in the details for her addled memory. "Brown hair, p- purple eyes. War plate. . . .she was in the woods, hunting someone. Some pack." Amaranth frowned. "She was looking for the Corengi pack."

After a moment the Elder motioned for her to continue, though there was a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

"She was well trained, but she was a monster; very confident in herself, a- and those eyes. Elder, those eyes weren't human. They– she was something else." At that moment the council members looked to one another as if they'd find some new insight on what had happened. When nothing came they turned their attention back to the knight.

But it was the Elder who spoke, his voice clear and reasoning. "You understand that with your failure to help the Vale, we may be forced to resign from the Council, our war with the Lycans is a tenuous and ongoing project, if some of your best men couldn't handle a feral pack–"

"It wasn't the wolves that killed us, Elder–"

"Young, young child." He said fatherly. "I was not finished."

"My apologies, Elder."

He smiled lightly, "It was your patron that wished to bring our races closer together, child. When no others stepped up to lend aid, he offered it quickly and without reservation, and yet when we persecute our fight against the lycans we come to realize that our would be allies are incapable of handling them. . . .I am forced to wonder if this alliance would benefit anyone but your– human kind. Your kin.

"Regrettably that seems well to be the case, which means I fear we will have to withdraw from this council and continue our war on our own terms." At the murmurs of disapproval and outright fear– likely over the magical support the city-states would be losing– from the councilors he raised his hand. "Fear not, we will maintain our current trade agreements but future agreements will be handled on a case by case basis. We've more work to do now that we truly understand the face of our enemy. . ."

For some reason that struck Yamma as odd. She shifted herself nearer the old man to survey his magic once more. Almost instantly every sense she had was beset by heat and a powerful sense of emptiness, as though everything around and within him existed in a vacuum. It wasn't that he was there but that something else wasn't. Just as this flicker of understanding came to her a tendril from the void lashed out directly at her presence the moment he walked towards her– she shifted aside and it tried again.

In the next instant she was beside Amaranth flitting through everything she knew about the strange magic. She reached out to the Collective but found no answers there, only curiosity. Meanwhile Amaranth made quiet assurances that they could handle anything the elven delegate needed. Some of the other councilors were offering their own assurances but none of that mattered to Yamma.

She felt the inky finger of nothingness claw out for her once more from within the folds of the elf's body, forcing her to retreat to the back of the room. Amaranth didn't react. She started blathering her nonsensical language and the old man replied in kind even as the tendrils reaching out for her grew longer and longer.

They crept across the table, from the table and out for Yamma.

"Very well," Amaranth said abruptly. Firm, commanding. "We can reconvene in the morning, Elder. I will see you off. . ."

At the dismissal the elf turned away, taking his tendrils with him from the chamber into the main receiving area. Almost instantly the hard, hot void dissolved with his absence leaving no trace it'd ever been there at all. Yamma shifted towards her charge, watching the old man disappear into the throngs of courtiers milling about the castle.

Who in the name of hell was that man. . .

Amaranth held her own through the questions and accusations that followed. Yamma pitched in where she could if only to occupy herself momentarily between fact checking and querying the Collective, cross referencing others' experiences with similar magic and the like. By the time Amaranth was done with her political business, the sun was setting and neither of them had learned anything new. The elf-blood took it better than the Cherub did– she bawled for hours when she was in a quiet space while Yamma flit about the city looking for leads on where the elven councilor had gotten to.

He was a phantom.

It occurred to her then that if her own network didn't know anything about him, she had other options. She shifted herself back to Amaranth's side only to find her in her bed curled up around an old coat– one of Markus's. The room had been ransacked and several clay pots lay in pieces amongst a flourish of books and paperwork from years past. A bottle of wine sat beside the bed dripping into a growing stain on the carpet.

"Well you're no help. . ." Yamma mused as she disconnected herself from the Collective. She manifested physical and dipped a gloved finger into the pool of wine, dabbing it on her tongue. It was remarkably sweet and warm, a subtle body and a melody of flavors. Like the curry Isira had given her.

The little Cherub glanced back to the door and, sensing no one, she took a sip from the bottle and set it on the nightstand. She'd give Amaranth a couple of days to sort herself out, then they'd focus on the task before them.

For the moment, though, she needed some information and she had an idea who might be able to provide it.

#

She found Isira in a semi-specific place where no light shone and only the faintest glimmer of the goddess's natural warmth dared to take hold. But it did take hold, and it filled the cavernous room with life. Her life. It took Yamma some time to get an idea of where she was, but after some consideration she recognized it as the place she'd been 'requested' to meet with the goddess shortly after her creation.

The tall pillars of glass and steel jutting from between broken segments of stone loomed over them in the absence of a sky, like fingers reaching for a light that would never come to them again. The smashed metal carriages and debris that lined the streets looked forlorn, unwanted but somehow mournful in some way Yamma couldn't quite identify.

Isira watched her calmly, waiting for her to speak apparently. She was straddling some kind of metal contraption with two wheels, her hands clasping a cross bar over the front wheel as she tweaked the pedal her sandaled foot was resting upon. She'd eschewed her usual flowing gown for short pants and a blouse that just barely covered her generous bust.

"Goddess–"

"Isira."

"Isira. . ." Yamma tensed. "I believe– I hope you don't mind my coming?"

She smiled. "The invitation was always open to you, dear. Now what can I do for you?"

"I had an encounter that I can't discern the nature of. I met a man who's magic was powerful. Incredibly powerful, like nothing the Collective or myself have ever seen, I was hoping you might be able to tell me of it."

"Hmmmmm I suppooseeee I could. But first, I want to show you something. . ." She patted her lap. "Hop on."

"I– I beg your pardon Go– Isira. I don't think that would be a good idea."

The goddess rolled Her eyes. "The time for questioning me is well past, don't you think?"

Yamma looked away. "I am sorry, Isira, I didn't mean to–"

"Tut, tut, tut. Come along." Without another word She pushed on the pedal and the two wheeled vehicle started off at a lazy pace. Yamma followed along with no effort though as they snaked their way through the ruins of whatever place they'd come to. She wondered why Isira didn't do the same. It was infinitely easier and more sensible to travel as they could rather than by physical means.

She was just about to mention it when Isira rounded a corner and bypassed a rather large boxy carriage clearly meant for a couple dozen or more people. The goddess stopped in front of a pair of metal carriages, big angular things with sloped fronts, broad sides and a strange dome-like cylinder on top of them. She casually parked her vehicle against them and strode forward, leading Yamma through the mangled remains into a building with a set of double doors. She shifted Herself through them rather than opening them and started down winding corridor of crinkled flooring and dusty walls that terminated in front of a metal door with a wheel on it and heavy bars slotted into the wall on either side.

"I don't understand–"

"You don't have to." Isira said lightly as they shifted together into the opposite room. It was large, wide and strewn with desks, chairs and all manner of writing implements– many of which Yamma couldn't readily identify. But the embossed plaque that took up the majority of the forward wall stood in stark relief to the rest of the room, like it was some kind of holy artifact to gods long past. It looked like a map of some kind but the language it was written in was utterly incomprehensible to her. Isira strode over to a small group of desks arrayed around a central pillar. "Do you have any memories of Elisandra?"

"We're not given them at creation, no. . ."

"Mm. . ." Isira glanced around the room before heading to a small squarish panel recessed in the wall and pressing her hand against it. When She did a small platform the size of two tomes wide uncoupled from the wall and fell to create a new desk, only it wasn't a desk. There was a device built into the platform with rows and rows of buttons on it in that same odd language. "When I knew her She was a soldier– this was long before your time. Time." She laughed merrily. Or was that a bitter tone? "Time. . ."

Yamma took physical form beside Her, looking to the goddess. "She has always been the Guide, Isira."

"That she has! That she has, but there was a time. . ." The goddess pushed a few buttons on the device.

The panel sparked to life casting a piercing blue glow about the room, displaying a tiny box with a few symbols and a blinking dash. Yamma stared in wonder at this form of magic, trying to pick up on its signature, looking for the familiar touch of divinity. And yet there was none. Isira gave her a sidelong smile, pressed a few more buttons. The panel's image changed into a sphere, slowly expanding until it filled the entire panel.

"What you're describing," Isira said as the panel displayed some more images. "You're describing the kind of magic that follows a dragon's child."

Yamma stared at the goddess openly.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. . ."

"But– Amaranth has known him since she was a child."

"You doubt me?"

"N- N–"

"You do." Isira prodded her. The finger connected surprisingly. "It's all right. . ." She pressed some more keys, sliding her finger along a tiny square on the panel, then in one fell swoop the plaque on the wall fluttered to life displaying ugly red outlines, slicing up the map into constituent parts and drawing a grid across it. Isira turned to the map, pressed something on the device behind Her and a blue circle blinked into existence over one of the land masses. "But let me tell you a secret. . . .we created the dragons."

Yamma frowned at that. "Should I know that, Goddess?"

"Yes, I think the time for secrets is over." The goddess looked to her. She was hesitant, uncertain. Careful. It was almost as if She didn't believe the words as they left her mouth– "We're going to need a lot of help, little one." She nodded towards the map on the wall. "This is our battle plan. . . .We're going to war."

The blue circle winked in the darkness.