Chapter 27 – A Secret Trip To Vanaheimer
We marched right into Vanaheimer and through the portal into the pyramid. Circe greeted us. Three of Frijjo's guards were present. I asked which of the guards was the leader of the team. The shortest of the guards raised his hand.
"I am. I'm Magical Warrior and Swordsman Leader Hy Kalin."
"Hello Hy. Things seem calm here. We have news from Asgard and need to meet with you, the Servers, and the Council. Can you come with us to Government House? We also should include Frijjo's chief aide, Mar Lev, and our ambassador, my brother Percy, and his wife Callista."
"We need as many able bodies as we can gather to guard this pyramid. Better if the Council comes to us."
"I can arrange that," Arce spoke up. "Ginny probably wants to message Terra's ambassador, herself. I'll message Government House through the Great Black Stone and invite Mar Lev and the Council members."
We met inside The Great Black Stone. All four of the Council members were present. Percy and Callista were with them. Everyone looked confused. I began the discussions with a simple statement: "Frijjo is dead. She died yesterday. She was injured in a fight far back in time on Asgard, when she tried to kill the spiders on Asgard, then she escaped, freed Vili, did we don't know exactly what for half a day, which could have stretched into months in seid-space, and was killed when she was bitten by a spider in an obscure, but very important, part of modern-day seid-space. I have seen her body. There is no question that she is dead. Odin took her body back to Asgard. If you want a funeral service on Vanaheimer, you need to quickly contact Odin. I called you together, as the non-royal contestants for power on this world, to see if there are any circumstances under which you can work together for peace on your world. Frijjo's death will be generally known quite soon and that may cause confusion and fighting, that you have a chance to avoid, or at least plan for. I also wanted to ask you if there was anything we can do to help you, or if you would prefer that we simply leave, until you form a stable new government?"
"Since you came back to Vanaheimer and called this meeting, I assume you have a solution to propose," Hy told me. "I'm not sure what to do. Does it make sense to continue to guard this pyramid? Should all of Frijjo's former supporters withdraw to Government House and defend that site?"
"I don't have a plan. That's the job of all of you. I believe it's in all your interests to defend this pyramid and to keep magic stable in your capital. I suspect that your whole world would suffer if The Great Black Stone was harmed. I hoped that the three groups, which you represent, and others in the capital which I don't even know about, can make a deal to keep this city running smoothly. Then you'll need to quickly reach agreement with those in the countryside to keep food flowing into the capital. I don't know what other factions exist. At some point you must consider the royals. I don't even know who they are or where to find them. I know Frijjo killed a lot of them. Most of those who attacked this pyramid and whom we fought at the circle beside the railroad track were those Frijjo regarded as royals, although she said she wouldn't recognise most royals, so she couldn't be certain. She killed all of those whom we stunned and captured. Close to a hundred royals must have died in those battles."
"I'm uncomfortable," Hy complained. "I'm just a soldier. Our faction should be represented by Frijjo's primary aide. I'll leave the negotiating to Ms. Lev and return to guarding the pyramid."
I admitted that I also was uncomfortable and would leave the diplomatic work to Percy. I admitted that while our government was willing to be helpful to the Vanir, I had no specific orders from our government and could represent only the Quest. We had planned to build a modern circle at Government House, but for now, maintaining political order and peace were more important. Before I could turn the meeting over to Percy, there were demands for more details about the last days of Frijjo. Hermione and I told the full story.
The chairman of Council, Wenzer Milord - not a royal, despite the name, said that it was just as well that Frijjo receive the standard Aesir funeral "she hardly still counted as Vanir."
Mar Lev took exception to this, then accepted Wenzer's apology, then admitted that with Frijjo gone, she led a small faction. Still, she wanted peace and would cooperate to work toward establishing a stable government. "If you'll have me, I'll happily take Frijjo's place on the Council. You should give the Servers a seat. That might just hold things together for now."
The Council members thought it a bad and arbitrary change to increase the size of Council by one.
"It will probably be by more than one," Arce warned them. There are other factions which must be brought into our agreement."
"I leave you to Percy," I told them. Hermione and I need to finish our examination of the White Columns and the caverns beneath them. Our government wants us back home soon, but we can plan the repairs to the columns and design the circle from home. We still need to learn how to repair the white columns. Until we do, we aren't much use to you."
Both Mar Lev and Wenzer Milord wrote 'passes' to get us past any guards outside or inside Government House. I told Percy that he had about a dozen Terran hours to work his mediation wonders, because Harry wanted us all home by the end of the day to consider our future direction and to draft a treaty with the new Vanir government, in case they desired tweaks to the old one. Percy was clearly disappointed by this news. Both Mar and Wenzer's attempts at neutral expressions failed. They would be pleased to see us gone, so that they could negotiate in their own style and at their own pace, while deciding outside of our hearing which other factions must be included.
Wenzer Milord halted our exit. "Here's your pass, but please stay for a bit more discussion. I need to get a better read on the two of you, Odin, and your intentions. An explanation of actions on our world would help. How much Terrans can help in our negotiations, the course of negotiations, and whether our people can be friends, all depend upon your answers. That is why it is important to have this discussion, before you leave, and we try to negotiate. The two of you killed many Vanir as Frijjo's ally. You were her most important fighters. Odin also killed. For the very major portion of the killing, those the three of you and your friends killed won't be missed, but they were Vanir and they were killed in Frijjo's service. Now it seems you've both saved Frijjo's life and had much to do with her death. And you delivered Vili to Odin and fear Odin will let him go free. Vili has friends on our world and they are not good people. Explain yourselves! Are you even legitimate Questers? Do you intend to build another circle for us and repair the White Columns or is that just a ruse to kill those your government thinks might be a danger to you?"
"Wow! We're starting in a deeper hole than I imagined. Yes, we truly are Questers, Odin, not Frijjo, is our trueiiisponsor. Our Quest was interfered with, to the serious detriment of my world, and I guess yours as well, by Frijjo and Vili. They improperly started the Quest, gave us false instructions at the start, and guided us to unknowingly release the worst Wizard villain in our history. We certainly intend to build another circle for you. Once we learn how to do it, we will repair your White Columns. We won't do either, unless we and our government view your world as safe. We are worried about a secret entrance to seid-space from the Village Vana. We fear that Gna used it to try to re-write your and our history. Frijjo didn't use that route to seid-space but re-wrote the history of at least three worlds. A lot of damage was done. We've tried to fix some of it and will keep working on that. If Village Vana is safe, and if we build a circle there, we certainly will search for the entry to seid-space."
I expanded on my previous account, relating both Odin's and Frijjo's account of her Quest, her 'capture' by Odin, the Vanir-Aesir war, and how Odin and we saw Frijjo's intentions at the time of her death. I told them that we were truth-tellers who had extreme difficulty determining if Frijjo had lied, but that even under the influence of Veritaserum, she consistently declared that she only wanted to help her people be truly free and magical, that she only wanted to be a parliamentary monarch for a few years to ease the transition, and that all she wanted for herself was a place to live and work productively, although to her that meant freely performing seid, without supervision by us or the presence of spiders. I admitted that I was very anxious about what I viewed as the very-overdue report from Odin on Vili's condition and fate. The other Council members and Arce had a few minor questions, but we were excused to go and examine the area around the White Columns. I had admitted Frijjo's mention of a 'transporter' on the lower level and our skepticism. I said we would destroy or repair nothing we found, prior to talking to them. The Councilwoman, who had not spoken at all, told the others that Hermione and I had told the truth.
Hermione and I didn't need to show our passes until we tried to enter the lowest chamber of the cavern system, the spot where the ruined transporter was said to be. The guards were unsure that they should admit us, but finally accepted the passes. Hermione and I looked, and we sketched. The transporter had the same upright crystals and flat, presumably message, plate, as our transporter. Perhaps more significantly, it had cracked and partially burned crystals, which bore a remarkable resemblance to the crystals on our transport after our 'accident'. The crystals were set into a six-and-a-half-foot square, probably a cube, of lodestone. They were surrounded by a circle, about as wide as I am tall, of clear quartz crystals. A stray wire, lying on the stone base strongly suggested that these crystals had been linked by a single course of silver wire. Hermione dropped an iron needle upon the stone to prove the point. We captured all this detail in our drawings.
I had a sense that this transporter could be repaired. For strategic political reasons, we hadn't even attempted to repair our transporter, but I was quite sure that Hermione and I could do the job. This was another technical question to resolve with Yggdrasil. Hubris regarding such matters can prove deadly. There were runes on two of the walls. Hermione copied them on two drawings. I looked for and didn't find the control booth I expected to be present. That was one big difference from out transporter. Not only would we need to repair this transporter, if we had any hope of using it, we also would have to figure out how and from where to operate it. The runes probably explained all of that.
We moved on to study the level above the transporter. This is where Miomor's inverted circle had stood. The bases of shattered crystals, perhaps half of the crystals in the circle, were still embedded in the ceiling. We drew what we saw, in case we needed this knowledge for future reference. I had no intention of rebuilding this circle. Before coming here, I had pondered the necessity and danger of our destroying this circle - with Council's permission, of course. The damage was so severe that this wouldn't be required. Even the lodestone, which started at the floor of this chamber and went through the floor of the chamber with the tops of the White Columns, was missing big chunks. How could the bomb have caused this much damage? It didn't seem possible.
Hermione had a theory: "the circle itself must have exploded. The surviving dark God mentioned that two of his fellow gods died when trapped inside the dying circle. Perhaps they were in the lodestone, somehow, and this damage is what the death of an extremely weakened dark God looks like."
Thinking one of the professor-friends might be able to better explain what had happened here, I made careful drawings of the damage to the lodestone, what the major pieces blown off looked like and exactly where they had landed. Hermione and I did the same for the bottoms of the White Columns and the pieces newly blown off them. We tried to capture what we felt was damage from our bomb to the walls of this middle cavern. I lacked the knowledge to understand how much damage our bomb should have done, but told Hermione "Just my stupid opinion, but I think our bomb wasn't the only explosion down here."
"I agree. At least two explosions. Maybe three. Uncle knows a professor friend who can help us. I think we've done all that we can do here."
We returned to the Council chambers to see how well the negotiations were going and to tell Percy that he had only one more hour, in orderto be gone as quickly as Harry wanted.
"I think we are making extraordinarily good progress, but your presence won't help, and I need more than an hour. You must ask Harry for three more hours. I know you don't do at all well, when you are hungry. One of these guards will lead you to food."
Was I that transparent? I didn't feel overly guilty as I observed that all the negotiators had heaped plates of food in front of them. Hermione and I allowed ourselves to be led to the official dining room, where we had eaten with Frijjo. The Councilwoman who had said we spoke the truth, rather than one of the guards, led us there and sat with us. Callista also joined us. The Councilwoman announced in a clear, commanding voice "I had better still have my Council seat, when I return."
The Councilwoman ordered food from an Elf, who appeared as soon as we sat down. She wryly commented. "You have just observed one of the fundamental aspects of Vanir society and the biggest reason Frijjo would not have been accepted as even what you described a parliamentary monarch to be. The acceptable role of women in leadership positions is severely circumscribed. Miomor was barely tolerated by half the population. Vili made political inroads among my people by opposing Miomor and swearing he opposed his brother and his brother's wife. Of course he lied. He supported Frijjo. Mar and I are the highest-ranking Vanir females. Mar has little influence and I am accepted because of my truth-teller skills. I guess the Servers are equally powerful and esteemed, but they are commonly viewed as religious figures, who must absent themselves from political struggles. I hope that your presence leads to some change. I think my fellow Council members want your help and want to maintain good relations with your world. That is just a little wedge, but it might be able to force some change."
The food was excellent. The Councilwoman, Mara Smid, was totally honest with us, as well as either Hermione or I could determine with our truth-teller skills. I thought she saw us as friends of the Vanir and possibly as her future allies.
We were just beginning our dessert, which was a pastry based upon nuts, dried fruits, lots of honey, and spirits I hoped weren't wood alcohol. I trusted this woman, so I didn't test with my wand. I had eaten only two bites, when I received a message from Odin.
I know you are worried by the delay. It took some considerable time to repair Vili and then I had trouble locating you. Vili and I have talked. He allowed me to return him to his cell for now, although he says he will not be happy with another prolonged stay. He wants to replace me when I leave Asgard. I'm not convinced that I should allow that. More discussion is needed. Of course, he blames Frijjo's bad influence for most of his actions. He is adamant that he did the right thing with Adrienne. He told me the prophecy he seeks to follow. I will tell you all when next we meet. I promise not to release Vili before then.
I relayed this news to my companions, and we headed back to the meeting. Oops! I stopped and hastily contacted Harry. Harry told me that he must trust Percy and that of course he would give him several more hours, if Percy felt it was both important and safe. I told Harry that I couldn't be totally certain but was convinced that it was safe. We stayed several more hours. Percy mediated for a couple of hours and then the group wanted to quiz us on what we had discovered. I told them the truth: there was a transporter in the lower chamber; it was broken; it probably was reparable; we would have to practice on our broken transporter before attempting to fix theirs - if they even wanted it fixed; we hadn't discovered anything looking like the sort of control area which was associated with our transporter. Also, it looked like our bomb wasn't the only explosion which damaged this area, although we wouldn't have a conclusion until we showed our drawings to the British experts. I also relayed Odin's message about Vili.
"We thank you for your honesty," Wenzer told me. We said our goodbyes, promising to return when we could, and were gone.
