The Crystal Citadel
The following post has been rated PG-13 for mature content.
Because, you know, we talk about mortgages and retirement plans and stuff like that.
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They arrived in the hills surrounding the city of Noxolt, just off one of the main roads. Arrie immediately began walking toward the city, as did Aralda and Autumn. The others hurried to catch up. Looking back over his shoulder, Kyle noted a lingering magical afterimage had been left in the spot they had teleported in, showing the silhouettes of the party. About ten minutes later, they all heard a loud explosion from the area they’d come from. Everyone glanced at Kyle, who shrugged; it was one of the magical distortions that had plagued casters since the ascension of Silko, and he had little control over it.
“At least it was an unpopulated area,” he said. They’d had to teleport in well outside the city, as the Imperial Palace itself was well warded against teleportation and divinations.
They met with no opposition as they entered the city and then the palace grounds, and were immediately ushered in to a secure room.
Arrie turned to Aralda as soon as the servants left. “Give us the details,” she said, curtly but not unkindly.
“Lanara and Herion have been in constant communication with us since they left on their diplomatic mission to the Tauric Empire,” Aralda said. “They’ve been in Erum, negotiating with the Taurics over a peace accord. The negotiations had been going along fairly; although the Taurics have a superior force, the size of their fleet has meant that they are even more troubled by the regions of Dream overlay than we have been, and so they are eager to negotiate a reasonable truce to deal with the problem jointly. We’ve been getting regular progress reports from them, about two a week on average. But when the letters stopped coming several days ago, we sent out a scout patrol to see what was going on. The patrol never returned. Our diviners have also tried to determine what happened, but their magic simply doesn’t work when they try to find either Herion or Lanara. Our priests can only confirm that they aren’t dead. The Emperor has asked that the Legacy look into this personally.”
“Had there been any changes in the negotiations?” Kyle asked.
“None that would explain their disappearance,” Aralda said. “They were actually starting to come to an agreement on some key issues. I think the Taurics are getting tired of living on boats.”
“We will want to see the letters they’ve sent, of course,” Tolly said.
“Of course, though I can tell you now that our cryptographers have found no secret messages or coded warnings. But most of them were penned by Lanara, so there may be something you will see that we haven’t.”
“It may be something as subtle as her choice of words,” Tolly said.
Aralda snapped her fingers. “Ah, before I forget – Tolly, you have had visitors awaiting your return for some time.”
“Then they can wait longer,” he said. “This takes precedence.”
“They are quite… insistent.”
“Very well,” he sighed. “I’ll see them this afternoon.”
The letters from Lanara were brought in for inspection. Though they went over every word with a fine-toothed comb, the Legacy could see nothing out of the ordinary about any of the letters. Finally, they agreed that looking for clues in Noxolt was fruitless, and with divinations giving no information, their only course of action was to travel to where Lanara and the prince had last been seen.
Their discussion was interrupted by the arrival of visitors. This came as no real surprise; several of the palace staff had come in to see the Legacy, expressing their fears of what had happened to their prince and to Lanara, and imploring the Legacy to find them. Over half their time had been spent shaking hands and offering words of encouragement. Clearly, both of the missing people were held in high regard.
When the newest visitors came into the room, however, everyone stood up in surprise. Tolly was the first to step forward.
“Princess Nidru, Princess Lajila,” he said. “It’s an honor to see you again.”
The two princesses from the Red Archipelago smiled, and exchanged greetings with the others. “We were told we would find you here, Tolly Nightsleaving,” Nidru said.
“How may I be of service?” he asked.
The two sisters exchanged a look that spoke volumes, then returned their focus to Tolly. “Our father, King Bali, charged you with our protection in the wake of the arrival of the Tauric invaders, did he not?”
“Indeed,” agreed Tolly. “Which is why I arranged for you to remain here at the Imperial Palace, which offers both security and accommodations suiting your status.”
“And this has been sufficient to a point,” Lajila said. “However, given the current state of the world, we feel that the place where we will be safest is at your side.” Both women then moved up and stood to either side of the Ardaran, cozying up to him in a manner that was best described as ‘familiar’.
Tolly turned slightly pink as he regarded the two women at his sides. “I’m honored by your trust in me,” he said, “but our missions require…”
“We are not helpless ourselves, Tolly,” Lajila said. “We are both ordained to the service of Krûsh, though the power he grants us is not as great as what Ardara has bestowed upon you. Ours is an offer of aid as well as a request for protection.”
“Well…”
“Oh, come on, Tolly,” Kyle said, grinning. “You know there’s no sense in turning down help. Besides, you did promise.”
Tolly sighed. “Very well, since you insist. I must warn you that we will likely leave tomorrow.”
“We will be ready,” Nidru told him. “We have few material possessions and can pack quickly.”
“They certainly don’t need a lot of time to pack clothes,” Yuri said under her breath, eyeing the scantily clad twins.
Lajila and Nidru took their leave of the party and returned to their suite. Tolly still looked uncomfortable after they left.
“Hey, it’s four more eyes working for us when we go look for Herion and Lanara,” Arrie said.
“They have eyes?” Osborn joked.
“I don’t really care what you do with them on your own time,” Arrie continued, “but if they are going to distract half of you on this search, then I’ll…” The threat was unfinished as Arrie suddenly collapsed to the floor in a heap.
Everyone looked at each other. “Stress?” suggested Yuri.
“It wouldn’t be like her,” Kyle said, as Tolly knelt down to check her vitals. A dark look crossed the priest’s face. “Kyle, come here,” he said. “Tell me what you see.”
Kyle next down and studied Arrie closely. His face paled. “Necromancy, with a delayed trigger effect.”
Tolly swore and cast a quick spell, which shimmered and dissipated with no apparent effect. “That should have worked,” he said, and tried the same incantation again. The result was the same. Cursing again, he raised up and extended a hand. His soulsteel weapon flowed out from his arm and shaped itself into a short, sharp blade, which he used to slice through Arrie’s chain shirt like it was cloth. He then began pounding on her chest.
“What is it?” Autumn asked, pushing forward. “What’s wrong?”
“She’s dead,” Tolly said somberly.
* * *
It took several minutes to calm Autumn down.
“My best guess,” Kyle said, walking back to Arrie’s body as Yuri and Osborn talked to Autumn in a corner of the room, “is that the spell was laid on her by one of the many visitors we’ve had today. There was plenty of opportunity.”
“So someone with access to the palace,” Tolly surmised.
“Something like that,” Kyle growled. “How many necromancers are in this damn family, anyway?” He scanned everyone else in the room. “No one else has any sign of strange magic.”
“We need to alert the Emperor,” Tolly said. “This could be a plot against the entire Imperial family. We need…”
Arrie suddenly sat bolt upright, drawing in a huge, gasping breath. Everyone rushed to her side.
“What happened?” Autumn shouted, after she wrapped her sister in a tight embrace. “How did you…”
“Wait a minute,” Tolly said, putting his hand on Autumn’s shoulder. He looked squarely at Arrie. “Ariadne, who won the bar fight the first time we were in Laeshir?”
“Kyle,” she replied.
“What was the exact amount you had to loan Kyle to pay his bar tab?”
“One hundred and thirty-four silver.”
“What was the name of the boy whose front teeth you knocked out when you were seven?”
“Jules, the stable hand.”
“Why?”
“He tried to kiss me, and boys are icky.”
Everyone sighed in relief. “You’re you,” he said. Some time ago, the Legacy had decided that in a world of shapeshifters, illusionists, and mind controllers, they needed some way of telling if someone was really who they said they were. They’d come up with a series of questions to be asked at random, combining a mix of various details that only the real person would know, as well as some deliberately altered facts to throw off anyone who’d done their homework.
Ariadne looked down at her chest, which was very sore. She noted the loose flaps of her chain shirt, and several links scattered about on the floor. “You own me a new shirt, Tolly,” she said, as she pulled the severed sides together to cover herself.
“I can have it repaired by morning,” he said. “But I’m curious as to what exactly happened. You were dead, and my attempts to return your soul to your body were blocked.”
Arrie nodded. “I know what happened. And we need to go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“First of all, somewhere we can talk privately.
Very privately.”
Many suggestions were made, but in the end they settled on a simple
rope trick spell. Once they were all inside, Arrie spoke.
“I was dead,” she began, “there was no trick there. The reason you couldn’t do anything about it, and the reason I was able to come back, is that Erito is the one who killed me.”
There was a thick silence in the small extradimensional space. “Why?” Autumn finally asked.
“Because it was the only way she would be able to talk to me.”
“What did she have to say?” Kyle inquired.
“She wanted to warn us about a very grave threat to all of us.”
“From Silko?”
“No. She doesn’t deny that Silko is bad news, but apparently Kristyan is worse.”
“How?” Osborn asked. “Silko’s a god now, and Kristyan’s just his lackey.”
“Kristyan has apparently constructed a Citadel of some kind. It’s this Citadel, or whatever’s inside, that has caused the overlays of the Dream Realm to appear in our world. Unfortunately, he apparently didn’t think things through when he built it, because now things are starting to come apart.”
“What do you mean,” Yuri said slowly, “’come apart’?”
“He’s tearing apart reality. If allowed to continue, he will break everything. Every. Thing. Erito’s exact words to me were, ‘He must be stopped, even at the cost of Aelfenn itself.’”
“Then we are not just saving our world,” Tolly said, “but the entire universe.”
Arrie nodded.
“Let’s go,” Yuri said.
“First we need to find out where we’re going,” Arrie said.
“I don’t suppose that Erito drew a map on you anywhere,” Kyle asked. Arrie shook her head.
“Erito has no awareness of where the Citadel is located – all she knows is that it is made of crystal. And mum’s the word on this – we can’t tell anyone what we’re doing, no matter how much we trust them. If Kristyan gets wind that we’re looking for the Citadel, we’re screwed. Erito had to kill me to be able to tell me safely.”
Tolly sighed. “We can’t rely on divinations, since we’ve never even met Kristyan in person. Even if we had, he’s likely warded against them.” The Ardaran’s face suddenly brightened. “I’m willing to bet that this Crystal Citadel is in the Dream Realm, or on the boundary between that place and our world. It would explain why Erito is unable to locate it.”
“That’s still a big area to look in,” Osborn said.
“But travel in the Dream Realm is a matter of intent, not directions,” Arrie said. “If we go there with the desire to find the Citadel, we’ll find it.”
“Unless he’s manipulated Dream to the point of blocking that aspect of its reality,” Kyle said.
“But even then, it will at least tell us we’re looking in the right place, because we’ll be able to feel our minds struggling against something.”
“And let’s not forget that since Erito gave us this information directly, Kristyan has no way of knowing that we know about the Citadel,” Autumn added. “He won’t know that we’re looking for it.”
“Now we just have to hope that Silko doesn’t notice us,” Yuri said.
“Actually, I don’t think Silko knows about what Kristyan’s doing, either,” Arrie said. “Think about it. Silko went to all this trouble to bring himself back and ascend to godhood so he could rule over creation – do you really think he wants dominion over a shattered universe? It’s possible that Kristyan is either ignorant of what he’s doing with his Citadel, or is a true nihilist.”
“Then I suppose we should go about getting to the Dream Realm,” Kyle said. “I hate to say it, but Herion and Lanara will have to wait.”
“I know,” Arrie said. “I’ll have to go tell that to Aralda and Haxtha.”
Those conversations turned out to be just as unpleasant for Ariadne as she had expected. Aralda cried and yelled for a while, and then became increasingly cold toward Arrie, which was no great surprise given that she was unable to explain exactly why she was not going to go looking for her husband and Aralda’s brother.
“Fine,” she snapped at the end, “if you can explain to the Emperor why you feel you can disobey an Imperial Order, then I will let it pass.” With that Aralda turned and stormed out of the room.
Haxtha was no less difficult. “Unacceptable,” was all he said to her. “You will continue with your mission to locate Prince Herion and Lanara Rahila.”
“Haxtha,” Arrie said slowly, “as much as your brother is one of the most important people in the world to me, and as much as I would do anything to make sure that he was safe, right now we have to move in a different direction.”
“Unless you tell me why, I cannot accept that.”
“Surely, you have been in a position yourself where you must order people to do things without telling them the reasons, because you know that allowing that information loose is dangerous. If I tell you why, it will negate an effort that we cannot duplicate.”
“You have to give me something more than ‘trust me’, Ariadne.”
She paused. “Haxtha, you have faith, am I right?”
“Of course.”
“Have faith now. I’m not asking you to trust me.”
He sat silently for a moment. “I will consider it. You will have my answer by morning.”
* * *
There was a knock on Tolly’s door that night.
“Come in,” he called from his room, where he sat at a desk table writing letters to his superiors in the Church.
Princess Nidru walked into the room, wearing a diaphanous gown which left little to the imagination. Even this proved too much, apparently, because Nidru reached behind her neck and released a clasp, and the gown fell softly to the floor.
“Princess…” Tolly began, swallowing back a lump in his throat. Nidru walked to his side and gently pulled the quill from his hand.
“There will be no argument, Tolly Nightsleaving,” she said to him. “Tonight I will share your bed, and the next night it will be Lajila. We both expect to be with child as soon as possible. Is this understood?”
Tolly thought for a moment. “The gods' will be done,” he said at last, and he reached for her.
* * *
When dawn broke the next day, the Legacy was already in the palace courtyard, preparing to leave. Word had already traveled that the famed heroes would not be going north to look for Lanara and Herion, and more than once they were the recipients of a cold stare or muttered comment from a passing servant.
Emperor Haxtha came out as the party was beginning to take their mounts, arriving without announcement or fanfare. He walked up to Arrie and looked up at her, lightly grasping the reins of her horse.
“I have spent the night in prayer and meditation,” he said quietly. “And Erito has seen fit to grant me a revelation as to the scope, if not the nature of your mission. I don’t say this often, but I apologize for standing in your way. I will find others to search for the prince and your companion.”
Arrie nodded. “I would have stood in our way, too.” She wheeled her horse around and took off out of the courtyard, heading west with the rest of the Legacy.
Two days of hard riding brought them to the gates of Vargas. Autumn greeted her people warmly as they passed through the streets of the city. The Tauric invasion had halted just north of the city, and most of the people credited Duchess Autumn and her military forces for keeping the Taurics at bay. Thus, at the moment, she was wildly popular.
“Quite a difference from the first time you came to the city,” Osborn observed.
“Yes, but I feel it’s undeserved praise. It was Togusa who led my armies, and my mother who ministered to the state. And the Taurics stopped their invasion because of Silko and the Dream Realm problems, not because of my rule here.”
“So take credit for choosing good people,” Osborn said. “Let the people have their heroine. You’ve spilled as much of your own blood on this ground as anyone else – you deserve it.”
Autumn smiled, and waved at the crowd.
They arrived at the ducal manor and were greeted by Autumn and Arrie’s mother, Auror. Autumn began to head for her offices, followed by the others.
“We really should be leaving now,” Arrie said.
“I have a few matters that require my personal attention,” Autumn explained. “I do have to do
some of the ruling around my own duchy.”
Arrie stepped up and whispered, “But it won’t really matter much if we’re too late to stop things.”
“Yes,” Autumn replied quietly, “but no one besides the six of us knows that. In the meanwhile, life goes on for everyone else in Vargex. And if we succeed, those people still need me to be their Duchess, even if only for a few hours.”
Arrie paused as Autumn continued up the stairs to her rooms. “Sometimes I just don’t get her,” she said.
“Try being the secret leader of a continent-wide clandestine paramilitary group some day,” Osborn said as he walked by.
By the next morning they were all ready, having seen to their personal affairs in case they didn’t come back. They walked out into the city, toward a large section of buildings that had been walled off. Vargas had been hit by two manifestations of the Dream Realm; the first was a fairly straightforward section of Nightmare, and that area had been sealed off and was under heavy guard to keep anything emerging from it at bay. No one went near that part of town.
The other area, where the Legacy was now headed, was entirely different. This section was also walled off and guarded, but in this case the guards were there to keep people out, not to keep creatures in. Autumn surveyed the newly-built wall when they got close enough, nodding with approval at the skeletal guards patrolling the base.
“Remind me to commend the mage who came up with the idea of using undead guards,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” Kyle said.
After a brief yet saccharine display of affection, Autumn and Kyle turned their attention back to the wall, and the thick iron gate off to one side.
“Better get all of that out of your system now,” Arrie said.
“It doesn’t really matter,” Kyle said. “There’s not much you can do to insulate yourself from the effects of the Fields of Love. We’ll just have to tough it out. But we can expect that at least a couple of us will fall victim to the area’s influence, and will have to be pulled out of it by the others.”
“What do these Fields of Love do?” Lajila asked.
“It’s an overlay of Dream that represents erotic dreams,” Tolly explained to her. “It evokes uncontrollable lust in those inside.”
“And before you ask ‘what’s so bad about that?’” Osborn piped in, “It’s a lust that overrides all other concerns – not just social propriety, but the desire for food, sleep, anything.”
“I can understand why you guard it so well,” Nidru said.
They approached the iron gate, Tolly easily holding back the skeletons with his holy symbol as Autumn opened the lock with a large key. Arrie steeled her mind against the realm’s influence, and Tolly called upon his faith to help keep everyone’s emotional state in check. Osborn donned his magical blindfold, and then, as an afterthought, opened up his
portable hole and had Rupert crawl inside. With a last look back, they entered the Fields of Love.
The sensory assault was immediate and overwhelming. The streets and buildings appeared the same, but they were surrounded by a reddish orange mist, and occasionally there were brief glimpses of humanoid-like figures sliding through the mist, most with exaggerated physical characteristics. The air smelled of flowers and exotic perfumes, with an undercurrent of musk, and the only sounds they heard were reminiscent of sighs of pleasure. They had traversed only a few feet when it became clear that some people were slowing in their progress. Yuri stood transfixed, her eyes unfocused and her breathing heavy.
“She’s been influenced by the realm,” Tolly said. “Some erotic figment had entered her mind.”
Autumn began to move to shake Yuri or otherwise distract her, when she heard moaning. She turned her head, and immediately flushed with anger.
Kyle and Arrie were locked in a passionate embrace, kissing deeply as their hands roamed everywhere. Autumn began to move toward them, balling her fists, when Tolly put a hand on her shoulder.
“Before you do something… violent,” he said, “Listen for a moment. Neither of them realizes who is in their arms.”
Autumn stopped for a moment, and realized he was right. By the names they called out, it was clear that Arrie was entranced by a vision of her own husband, Herion, while Kyle was caught up in a waking dream about his own wife. Both had simply reached out in the midst of their individual fantasies, and made contact with the closest person to them.
“Well, beyond the fact that this is really weird to watch,” Osborn said, “I don’t think we’re getting very far with three people down, and the longer we stay here the more likely this turns into an eight-way orgy.”
“Then you wish them to stop?” Lajila asked.
“Yes, please,” Autumn said. “Now.”
Lajila and Nirdu stepped forward and cast some spells that were unfamiliar to both Tolly and Osborn. The glazed look vanished from the eyes of Yuri, Arrie, and Kyle. While Yuri’s recovery was relatively easy, Kyle and Arrie spent a few moments looking at each other, both clearly trying and failing to come up with something to say. Then slowly, slowly, they disentangled themselves, took a large step away from each other, and began to quietly readjust clothing and armor that had been pushed out of place.
“We need to move on,” Osborn said. “Tolly, you take the lead.”
They began to move forward, deeper into the region of Dream. They had no particular destination in mind; they only needed to get far enough in that they could transition to the Dream Realm fully.
“Hurry up,” Arrie said, her eyes riveted on the ground. “I want to get somewhere where I’ll be able to make contact with all of you again. Eye contact! I meant eye contact! I hate this place!”
“I think we may have come far enough,” Tolly said, stopping suddenly. He raised his hands toward an area directly ahead, where the mist seemed to be coalescing into a narrow vertical oval shape. As the mist thickened and the oval widened, Tolly extended both hands on an impulse and placed them in the middle of the oval, then pulled them apart slowly as if drawing back curtains. The oval parted down the middle, irising into a portal. An area of bright light lay beyond.
“Wow,” Yuri said, “talk about your blatant metaphors.”
“No one will accuse the Fields of Love of subtlety,” Osborn said. “Let’s get out of here.”
They all moved quickly through the opening, with Autumn the last to leave. They stood in the midst of a bright, blinding light.
The quest for the Crystal Citadel had begun.
Maybe Tolly should be nicknamed Starbuck (for the bull, not the restaurant chain) and place an ad: "In need of superior heirs for your kingdom/country/city? Look no further! Tolly 'Starbuck' Nightsleaving, priest of the Church of Ardara and one of the heroes of the famed Legacy adventuring group, offers very reasonable rates and a proven track record of quality offspring. Questions can be asked through sendings or by sending a representative to the Imperial Palace."
