THE AETHEROCHEMICAL RESEARCH FACILITY
"That was more difficult than I thought."
Tancred pointed at the pine marten, floating in a jar of water, heated to be exactly equivalent to his body temperature. She would serve a most interesting purpose in the days to come. "But at least things are back on track."
He looked around the Aetherochemical Research Facility. "Well, the Dragon Queen is nowhere to be seen, so the party's already begun, huh?"
"Yes," came the response.
"Seasons, does that One-Eye scare me like no beast's business. The way he enters into Bloodwrath like one of our kind." He carefreely flicked his wrist. "And it doesn't help that no one knows what that Vulpuz-damned cat wants."
He turned to his black-cloaked guest. "I have to wonder if you vermin have the slightest idea of what is going on in your own heads."
The fox looked nonchalantly at the scene in front of him. Monitors laid around the room, powered by a main computer which dimensions cannot be measured by sight alone. The lights in the walls glowed dimly, but they seemed to reveal in themselves a radiance unmatched by candles or torches. In the middle, though, were three vats of liquid, two containing the pine marten and a hare, both kept in torpor.
Pallpelt opened his mouth. "I will simply be led wherever it is I am destined to go."
Tancred smiled. "Sounds to me like you don't even have the flaming slightest idea."
The fox's pinched expression remained glued to his face. "Every existing plane has one copy of the Sword of Martin, the Worldcleaver, but there exists a dearth of seers to use them. In the Source and all Shards, warriors are bequeathed the Augmenter, but with the passing of time, as one could imagine, more and more warriors were forged from the walls of the Abbey, and beyond as well." He scowled. "But of all the Worldcleavers in existence, only the Lightningshard sword has its own twin."
He lifted up an open claw, then closed in with a sudden, as if he was crushing a fly within it. "And that is my destiny." Rolling his eyes, he continued. "But it has yet to become a reality."
"And what is the twin?" asked Tancred.
"The sword of the very beast you worked for." The black fox felt the scar on his stomach where Adran's sword had stabbed through his ice giant.
Tancred tilted his head. "The scimitar?"
Pallpelt slowly nodded.
"I knew the blade was powerful, but it could not be the same level as the Worldcleaver - it's twin – or that is what we believe. One Worldcleaver would split one of the Six Shards apart – and this one has two!"
"It would split a shard apart. But the Lightningshard is no ordinary realm, is it not? Could it be that the Lightningshard was made possible by two shards colliding?" Pallpelt's brows twitched at his own theory.
Tancred smiled as he Conjured a Corridor of Darkness. "That could be a likely explanation. The distortion that plagues this world predates our interference, and is a factor of some other event caused by a break in reality."
The otter tucked his paws in his pockets. "Well, don't fret, Isangrim, it's alright. This is all connected to the Calamity, perhaps? The one which split the world? Whatever. I got my paws all too full with my own plans. Do whatever you want."
The otter pointed at the empty vat. "But first, tell me this. Which poor soul with it be? Our new little subject?"
"N-" Scarcely had the fox pronounced the first syllable did Old Thordan vanish.
The thunder shard shall burn with the Darkening Cloud's call;
The Lord of Chaos doth beckon, and ruin shall take us all.
-Words found carved into Salamandastron five months after Deyna set off from Redwall