26


    The situation, in a few broad brushstrokes, was this: he''d pushed back that ominous lightning wall, revealing a second shrine… but also a knot of wildly battling orcs. The female combatant had made short work of her would-be suitors; gutting one of them from stem to stern, then breaking the other''s neck. For some reason, this failed to surprise him.


    Couldn''t just leave, though, because he needed to enter that newly exposed temple... and maybe because the victorious orc spoke his language. Or a near enough version to make conversation possible.


    That she was still red-handed and spattered with gore from the slaughter of two likely mates, he could overlook. Different species, different morals, and he had disrupted her mating rite. Was apparently now responsible for finding Marget (her name) a fresh suitor.


    Meanwhile, the day was winding down toward nightfall, in a place where he''d very much plucked at the heart-string of Chaos. Something vile was sure to turn up for a look, and that was a genuine problem.


    More… and maybe worse… he''d spotted what looked like himself, ducking away near the spring''s tumbled rockpile. Marget seemed not to have noticed. She just loomed at his side, too tall by half, honing the blade of her dagger and trying to guess his real name. Badly.


    "Phillot," she suggested, testing the blade''s edge against the ball of her calloused right thumb.


    "No," he snorted, shaking his head. "Setting names aside, you must remain alert. The last time I awoke a shrine, a giant attacked."


    He looked around, scanning over a mile of newly-formed landscape. Further west and north, halfway up the side of a hill, Miche saw the shimmering lure of a tanglewood tree. Any sentient being would know to avoid the dangerous thing, making it ideal for his purpose.


    He indicated the softly gleaming, murmuring lure with a nod, saying,


    "Time flows strangely between shrines and the outer world. Should you need to leave this place, Marget, make for yon tanglewood tree… but not within reach of its noose. If I find you not here, I will search for you there."


    She''d already threatened to take the small temple apart, stone by stone, if he failed to reappear. Now, habitual scowl shifting slightly, the orc growled,


    "Here, I wait. If threatened, I fight. Do not be long in returning… Braddock."


    Wrong again, but her effort was oddly warming. He shook his head, then turned and started for that nearby jumble of broken stone. Didn''t see his double, but felt no threat from it, either. More a brief blending of senses, as though he were seeing himself from more than one angle. He had other matters to attend to, though, and needed his thoughts in one head. So, forward.


    The shrine''s collapsed outer structure had once been a tall and elegant building of polished stone, inscribed with magical runes. Now, reduced to a heap of rubble, it almost barred entry. Miche found a way in, because he was slender and lithe, and because the rock itself seemed to withdraw a bit; behaving as much like a curtain as dense stone could manage.


    In through a nearly horizontal crevice he went, then downward, along steps made of cracked pour-stone and bent, rusted steel. The interior region soon went from a jagged, debris-fanged negative space to an actual, mosaic tiled passage. There were glows set into the curving overhead, and a set of metal rails, like those in a mine, flush with the pour-stone floor.


    Nameless, peeping out from the hood of his cloak, chattered a marten-ish comment. Moved around a lot, too; claws biting into his clothing and flesh, weight shifting constantly as it peered from side to side.


    "Not our world or our time, I think," responded the elf, speaking quietly. "The construction and images are very strange."


    There were elves… Old Ones… in the mosaic pictures that lined the long tunnel, but they were shown in strange, dark armor pocked with small lights, or at the helm of airships like the ones he''d seen broken and smashed, out on the distant plain.


    Firelord leaned halfway out of him for a moment; face and ears back, one hand clinging tight to Miche''s soul-self. Then, the young god darted free, shooting off as a shower of sparks to explore on his own.


    One didn''t say to one''s god, "Have a care," or "Don''t do anything I wouldn''t do"... Instead, the elf called out,


    "Touch nothing, My Lord, unless we are nearby to help you, in case of attack."


    To which he received the deific equivalent of an affectionate shove, nearly pushing Miche out of his own body. Took him a moment to realign, learning astral projection in the process. (Gods. You tried to raise them right…)


    He walked forward a few hundred yards, past a handful of dusty, dark tunnel mouths. Stooped from time to time to examine the metal construct bits that littered the floor. The shrine''s defenders, possibly? If so, they hadn''t fared well, being little more than scraps of armor and sigil-like, silvery wiring. There were bones, as well. Not in the armor, but somehow meshed with it, as though the person… the elf… had been part flesh and part metal.


    Miche burned those bones with clean fire, feeling perplexed and saddened. It hadn''t gone well here, he sensed.


    Came at last to a portal, its metal cover… hatch… torn away and bent nearly in half, the rails melted to slag. The lights flickered oddly, at this end of the tunnel, most of them broken or dark. He paused. Scratched Nameless''s head, just behind the marten''s round ears.


    "If you would like to remain out here, that may prove safer. At least, until I have scouted the place."


    Nameless replied with a vicious nip, no more inclined to accept good advice than Firelord (surely already inside).


    "Very well, then. Have it your own way. When we are all three shades, haunting this wretched tunnel forever, I shall take especial delight in moaning ''I told you so''."


    The marten did not seem impressed. Summoning a wisp of light, Miche passed through that warped hatchway and into the damaged shrine. There was a sense of dislocation. Of being combed through by a magical grid. Then, he was in.


    The last shrine had consisted of a spring at the base of a natural cave. This one… Well, beyond the general mess of shattered pour-stone and tangled metal, it was a deep, round amphitheater, with concentric steps leading down to a cracked, empty pool.


    Over it flickered the image of a glowing, very beautiful goddess, her expression deeply alarmed. Over and over, she repeated the same short series of acts; gliding forward, hands upraised, mouth open as though about to cry out a warning.


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    Her image went jagged and dispersed into glittering motes at the end of each surge, getting out only "Nuh…" before falling silent. Then, moments later, she''d reform to do it again. Firelord''s shower of sparks circled the theater like a shimmering wind, but did not touch the broken image. (Good, smart god.)


    Miche pulled Nameless out of his cloak hood and then set the marten firmly onto a top step.


    "Stay here," he commanded. "She is damaged, and trying to help her could just make things worse. I would not have you harmed by my blundering."


    Nameless sat up, otter-like, but did not disagree. Just stank, again; perfuming the elf to orc sensibilities. Recalling a very rude phrase, he grunted it at the marten, then started on down.


    Firelord''s circuit tightened to match his own cautious descent. They were slowed by fallen ceiling beams and massive cracked slabs, having to meander, ant-like, through rubble and wrack. There were more armor-bones here. Miche burned all he could reach with Firelord''s help, but mostly he kept heading downward.


    At last reached the diagonally cracked pool, which was lozenge shaped, and long enough for a tiring swim, end to end, had it contained any water. A hundred yards, he thought.


    Overhead, the tall, shining goddess flickered, cried out and gestured, seeming to issue from a square panel of lights set into a pedestal of dark stone at the edge of the pool. This was inscribed with glowing runes and stood about waist high to Miche.


    Above and behind, Nameless barked caution. The elf waved without looking back.


    "I know," he called out. "I wasn''t decanted this morning!"


    (Whatever that meant.)


    Anyhow, there were press-in circles and colored lights flashing on the pedestal, which was as badly cracked as the ceiling above. One particular, green circle flashed more urgently than all of the rest, but Miche hesitated.


    If… he thought… pushing in that green circle somehow rebirthed the goddess, and if the construction from which she emerged was corrupted… might she not simply vanish away? With even this much of her gone, for all time?


    He just didn''t know. Had no one to ask.


    Firelord whirled overhead like a tornado of flame but had no suggestions at all. Well… it had worked on the lightning wall, so Miche pulled out his cylinder-key, again. There was no obvious place to insert it on the broken pedestal. The cylinder was an object of great power, though. It would have an effect, regardless… he hoped.


    Holding the wildly buzzing and flashing cylinder, he leaned over the pedestal, making ready to tap them together. Not unopposed. Shadows seemed to gather and flow together like dark fluid, up the walls then overhead, trickling out from hollow and crevice to unite over Miche. He was just able to thrust the cylinder back in its pocket again and haul out his sword.


    Then the puddled darkness above him solidified, growing from flat shadow to icy black construct. Next it dropped from the ceiling, popping and crackling like a green wood campfire. Ten feet high, the thing lashed at him with bladed forelimbs, slicing his cloak as Miche spun aside.


    A burning red light-spear shot from its forepart, slashing a steel beam in half. The metal''s ringing collapse raised a thick cloud of dust, which blocked the light-spear''s passage. Scattered it, somehow.


    The elf kicked up more dust, using smoke-step to keep out of the construct''s path. It had to skitter and climb. He could port; appearing beside, behind and on top of the thing, in rapid succession; attacking it. Only, the construct proved impervious to fire, ice bolt or sword thrust. That shadow armor repelled all that Miche could throw at it. Worse, the part of its clattering, many-limbed body that held the light-spear could rotate. He nearly lost an arm, discovering that.


    He was forced to dodge, port and retreat, trying to think and to stay alive at the same time. Meanwhile, blast after searing red blast cut the debris around him to slivers, burning off half of his braided long hair.


    Miche was learning, though. How far it would move at a rush. How long between actions. How swift its reactions. (Thirty feet… five hammering heartbeats… impossibly fast.) Making use of the cover, he scramble-ducked-skidded and ported, at last coming up with a stupid, dangerous plan.


    See, whenever he smoke-stepped onto the construct''s back, it slashed at him. If he timed it just right… flashed away just as the monster struck… he could get it to tear at itself with those swift, bladed limbs.


    Time and again, with manna from Firelord and screeching distraction from Nameless, he was able to port himself onto the swerving black construct. The rest was timing. Retreat too soon, and it wouldn''t attack its own shadowy carapace. Too late, and he got himself gashed or (once) nearly skewered. Had to swing off of its heaving back, hanging onto its leg with one arm, dangling wildly over the ground.


    He could rest a little by smoke-stepping further away, but then his attacker would heal itself, forcing him to start all over. It had an awful, juddering, sick-making gait, worsened by all of that violent, short-distance porting. It twisted and jerked, fighting to throw him off, while hissing-fast limbs struck like spears.


    But finally, thank holy gods, the strategy worked. The construct''s own blades cut a sparking hole in its armor. He was aboard, trying not to get shaken off, cut in half or impaled. Pushed himself up to one knee, holding the hilt of his sword, blade downward, with both hands. Then, with a grunt, drove the weapon straight into that rapidly healing gash. It sank in. Energy flared and…*


    *... Awake. He was awake, with someone licking his face. Blinked, finding his vision blurred and everything else gone utterly numb.


    "Yes. Good," he coughed, feeling as addled as the flickering goddess, above. "M'' fine. M'' wake. Leave off."


    The construct lay curled up like a woodlouse, some ten feet away; twitching, clicking and belching dark smoke. Didn''t seem like much of a threat, but Miche summoned the sword back to his nerveless fingers, anyhow.


    After a few deep breaths and some borrowed manna, he was able to sit up without toppling over. Even hung onto the sword. His hands and forearms were badly scorched, but healing, while Nameless had lost most of the hair on its tail. Firelord was once more a vortex of sparks at the ceiling, drained almost beyond recall. The hair and lost manna would take time to replace… unless Miche could repair the shrine and its healing spring.


    Before getting up, he looked around for more puddles of shadow, but they''d all gone into that wrecked construct, leaving the chamber looking weirdly flat and dimensionless.


    Miche wobbled onto his feet, pausing to let Nameless scramble back up to his shoulder. Then, gathering himself, he went across to the cracked pedestal. A lightning-smell, a scattered-dust smell filled the wide chamber, making him sneeze. Nothing else attacked, though. That was a very good thing, as he would have had trouble defending himself from a light breeze, so close had the shock of stabbing that construct come to killing him.


    He made it to the goddess pedestal in a few dozen rubbery steps, winding his way between piles of chopped stone and shorn metal beams. At the dark pillar, Miche hauled out his cylinder-key, feeling its wasp-like buzz against a still painfully sensitive, raw-fleshed hand.


    Saw that the lights in the relic were starting to pulse and flash in time with the glowing green circle. Good sign?


    He tensed, looking around, but nothing dropped from the ceiling or crept from the walls to attack. One hand at the hilt of his sword, the nervous elf touched the cylinder''s end to the pedestal. Something… some torrent of shining runes and numbers… flared between them. There was a bright flash of head-clearing, wound-healing light. The entire world seemed to stutter-bump, then restart. He was all at once cleansed and whole, Nameless''s tail restored to full glory, while Firelord huddled for safety inside the elf. Necessary, because they were in the domain of another deity, and gods do not share.


    The goddess reformed herself in the air before Miche. She was lovely, with shifting pale hair and a piercing-sweet smile; nearly as transparent as the spring''s restored waters.


    "Welcome, Old One," she chimed, in a voice like crystal struck by a silver wand. "You have returned this node to nearly full function and brought back part of the missing land. For that, we are grateful."


    She leaned down, then, kissing his forehead. A sensation of peace flashed through him; a sense of correctness, as if he was a person in his own right, and not just the half-empty shell of somebody else.


    The construct was gone.


    "An internal countermeasure corrupted and set to run amok, I''m afraid," mourned the spring-goddess, whose eyes were every color at once. "You did well to destroy it, Misheta, though our shadows will be long in returning."


    True. He had no shadow at all. Nor did anything else in the chamber. Not even Nameless, who''d sunk down into his hood, again.


    Of his stay there? How long? What did he learn? What details emerged on the map? It all seemed to flow, very dream-like. But, in that timeless bright bubble, Miche asked,


    "Who fought this war, Goddess, and why?"


    She replied, sounding troubled,


    "Those long oppressed, once manna faded, lessening the difference between your kind and theirs. A dark spirit of vengeance possessed them, and they vowed to hunt down and destroy every last elf."


    He started to ask,


    "Were we that awful?"


    … but the answer was yes. They had been, most of them. For himself, he had not enough past to say what he''d been or done, before waking from stone. Just a skim of fresh memory. Just Miche, making himself up as he went along.