Chapter 28: Notes
Perspective: Astro
I recapture some of my former energy as Shadow comes in the door. Try to be helpful. Since Fristad died I'm trying to be a little more involved again. I - I let the "training room incident" knock me down and I've mostly just stood around looking morose when I should be trying to save lives.
Even though nothing I do will influence the outcome of whatever happens in the Tower, I have control over what happens here and now. I have to guide our response. Make it responsible. What Fire has done is not responsible - it's desperate. But it must just pay off…
I shoot a look at Kay. He has his nose buried in the Book and he's stroking his beard. I look away before he notices.
"If Fire doesn't make it," I realise. "That's our leader."
And with that cheery thought I turn to Fire's sister. An uncharacteristic tension mars her pitch-dark features. I've seen her walk off being impaled with mild irritation. She's nervous. It must be awful.
Some dark part of me thinks, "Perfect opportunity to extract her dark secrets. Get even." In retaliation, the better parts of me loathe themselves.
Fire's room is full of redstone contraptions, tools and not much else. Aside from the bed there's just circuits drawn and made all over the floor. Blueprints of the base, with potential future expansions traced out and pinpointed. Scattered notes are pinned into them, written in half sentences.
As I approach Shadow, I'm careful not to trip over a lever that is attached to a series of pistons and slime blocks. A yellowing note is glued into the wood frame. It reads: "rudimentary flying machine - finish sometime. Bombs maybe?"
I gesture to the line of claws holding ender pearls on a counter. The first of these opened not too long ago, materialising a note where the pearl impacted. A note that I was now holding in my hand.
"What does it say?" Shadow asks.
That tallies. She sensed it come in. Should have known her arrival wasn't by chance. Warnado sprints up behind her. Tyron is out gathering everyone else.
"Hey Astro," Warnado pants, hands on his knees. "Give me a second… I swear I'll have a killer gag once I catch my breath."
I decide to ignore that, though I hear Kay snort in the background.
I hold out the note. I recall the posture the officers of the Zine Craft forced us to learn and try to recapture some of its stiff efficiency.
"Invisibility is done but camo's still working. No need to alter the plan so far. He's currently in material storage and following the signage."
Shadow stretches out and scrutinises the note as though it's a dubious permit. She hands it back to me and then walks straight over to the counter.
"How long until the next?" she asks, squinting at the claws with the same suspicion.
"Three minutes," I say.
Warnado walks up. He's got a grin on his face, and I can tell he's about to reference something none of us, possibly not even he, understands. He opens his mouth.
"So-"
I place a hand on his chest and stop his advance. He looks at me quizzically and is greeted by urgently upstretched eyebrows and gritted teeth. He cocks his head defiantly and looks at Kay. My old friend, concealing himself from Shadow's eyes behind the cover of the book, shakes his head and mouths the words "Not the time!" Warnado surrenders. He says nothing more.
Over the course of the next few minutes, Steve, Jennifer and Voidblade arrive. The next pearl drops from the claw with the signature ender pearl teleportation noise.
"Still alive," says Fire from afar. No more. No less.
Destiny comes in. She smells like alcohol. Not terribly or anything. She's not swaying or stumbling or slurring her speech, but there's a film of slight inebriation over her. Everything seems a little muted for her, and it shows. She seems too casual. She goes out for walks to mods know where a lot and comes back like this. Mostly since Fristad died. It's not a problem but...
I wish I could take her aside and talk about how she is but there are more pressing matters. It wouldn't help anyway. She just hadn't been that close with Tyron and I, despite our shared captivity.
Urist jogs in with dwarven stoicism, obviously pained but trying to grin. Voidblade warps in and takes up a stance in the corner, away from the humans.
A third sheet materialises as the pearl drops out of its allocated claw and shatters. Shadow snatches up the paper and reads it aloud, marching off into a corner.
"Dr. Veronica Mercury (science head) apparently sleep deprived. Looking into whatever Shadow did to distract her and the Ender during the raid. Apparently obsessed. Orders from the Entity to prioritize over the machine. Freak telling employees rumors/secrets in exchange for fear. Someone named Clark Belmont is stealing snacks (probably not relevant but written for completeness)."
She lowers the sheet and nods. Tyron arrives and Kay summarises what has just been said.
"Is there a way we could exploit Mercury's sleep deprivation?" the Dragoknight asks.
"Harassment campaign perhaps?" I offer, pondering as I say it how we would get near enough to make that work.
"She came to check out the anomaly you created, Shadow?" Warnado suggests with surprising calmness. "Could create a series of them, see if she takes an interest? Entity's obsessed after all."
Tyron ruffles his hood approvingly and Kay pats him on the back. Jennifer shoots him an approving thumbs-up and, realising I haven't done anything, I clumsily extend my hand and raise a thumb so as not to be rude. Steve stares off into the distance.
"I might, if I can be sure that it won't draw attention here," she answers.
"Would we want to kill her or capture her?" Destiny asks with a flat shrug, preemptively indicating she had no qualms about doing the job herself.
"Fristad mentioned Belmont," says Steve without suggestion.
The conversation continues in the same vein. Rose arrives and eyes the redstone awkwardly. Eventually she takes up a seat on the bed, eyes sweeping the room with a frustrated confusion. It strikes me that she knew substantially less than most about redstone's function when I first met her. I'm no expert, but she barely seemed familiar with the idea of circuitry.
"Low-tech world?" I ponder.
Amanda enters and joins Warnado. He takes her aside and starts whispering excitedly. I catch the gist of it thanks to a magically-enhanced curiosity. He's pleased to have proposed a strategy people seem to like. Amanda is proud of him. I retune my hearing before someone can drop a glass and deafen me.
"Shadow's not the only one who can eavesdrop," I bitch internally. One look at Shadow pacing immediately makes me feel terrible about it.
Note four arrives. He's killed someone. A guard with crystals. Jennifer prods Steve and mentions the crystals they had experimented on back in the village. The crystals that the Entity had tried to steal from them. Steve places an ender chest demonstratively, breaks it and falls back into inaction.
I inspect him. He's slumped from his anger into an indeterminate, paralysing sadness. The bargaining phase of grief is over, and he's gotten a raw deal. I know a little too well what comes next.
Notes five and six are basic status updates. A slight change of course here, a 'still alive' there. The lack of bad news is almost worse than receiving it. I get a hold of the 'still alive' message and start thinking about what a low bar that sets for good news.
My attention is drawn to the memory of the Void. I have begun to think about it less, but it still lingers. The dreams grow stranger and stranger. I am many different people or none. Always pursuing some treasure I never see. Maybe it doesn't exist. I ponder what this tear in existence might be trying to communicate. Is it a metaphor, perhaps?
The tension is spreading across the entire room. Discussion of Warnado's strategy has petered out. Shadow and Kay are pacing in opposite trajectories, the latter periodically ripping the Book out of his pocket and glaring at its pages silently. Tyron polishes Kir in the corner. Urist and Jennifer inspect the 'flying machine'. I wait.
Note seven arrives. The sound of glass shattering awakens everyone from this agitated stupor we've all drifted off into. Tyron is nearest, but he holds off on grabbing the note from the pearl's remains.
Shadow takes it as before. The look on her face is enough to tell me something has gone dreadfully wrong.
Her hair begins to rise up, as though the room were slowly filling with water. Her already shadow-like skin somehow descends to a shade beyond darkness. Her eyes are like stars, burning and terrible.
"Get back," I warn.
I recall the gaping emptiness she had shown me, and I still feel unprepared. Kay puts the Book away and reaches for his sword.
Suddenly, Shadow stabilises. Her skin returns to its normal pitch black. Her hair drops like a collapsing roof. She's shaking, but she holds out the note.
Tyron takes it up. Reads it.
"He's been 'caught'," he sighs. He tries to read the rest, but no one pays him much heed. Kay groans and rubs his temples. Everyone else falls into different degrees of shock, unable to speak. Steve looks like Fristad has died all over again.
"What?" asks a voice from the door.
I look up. Lucy stands in the doorway, gripping her ever-present notebook with white knuckles. A tear runs down her cheek.
"Fire has been captured," responds Kay with a reluctant certitude, a distant sincerity. "I understand if this is difficult for you. Anyone who needs a moment to process this, please, feel free to step outside. We'll wait for you before we make any decisions."
Lucy nods and takes a step into the hall. Steve goes too. Voidblade, reluctantly takes a step outside, but looks back at Kay with discerning, suspicious eyes before slouching out mournfully. Urist, somehow weighed closer than ever to the ground by sadness, leaves with them.
"Brainstorming here: I say we make an announcement immediately," Kay states. "Honesty wins the troops over."
"There'll be mass panic," I retort with habitual cynicism. I wonder at how easily I slot back into my role as the flint off which he strikes ideas. "Leader of the rebellion is gone. You need something more than honesty."
"So, we need a task," he paces in a little circle, then points at Shadow. "It would help if we knew if Fire was 'caught', 'captured' or…" he trailed off with an emphatic lowering of his hand.
"I don't think he's dead, otherwise..." Shadow says, unusually quietly.
I remember the gaping, abyssal glimpse Shadow had given me of the Void. How, just there, she had threatened to cede to it entirely. To allow this creeping nothingness into our world of things. The Entity is obsessed with what she did in the village, according to Fire's notes. Is that fascination? Anger? Fear? It occurs to me that she's losing control. Shadow, so long the crystalline voice of reason, might prove to be a time bomb.
Kay nods empathetically.
"That's good. Whatever we do next needs to appear as a step toward rescuing him. A clear message: no man left behind. But what?"
He's pacing again in a shrinking spiral. I remember him doing this many times while we were wandering the world after the Onslaught. For him that's all recent - he's still in the habit. He picked it up from an early commanding officer. Treats the spiral like the fuse on a bomb. He must have a solution before he's reached the centre or the bomb goes off.
"Anyone we could kidnap?" Jennifer asks with uncharacteristic coldness. "Exchange hostages. We could threaten to kill Silver, maybe? No, he's too small to matter to them."
"Glibby will have denounced him as a traitor by now, as well," I concede. "He'll have needed a patsy."
"Have the scouts identified any facilities we could attack?" Jennifer presses.
"So far, only patrols, a few trading posts, an outpost," Tyron rattles off a few more. "The substantial targets Silver's told us about are all either surrounding the Tower or off-world. The Entity knows how to centralise power."
"Nothing sufficient to motivate people. We'd have desertions up the wazoo by midday tomorrow," Kay grunts. "Unless we just say screw it and hit the Tower."
"We're not strong enough to attack the Tower yet," says Destiny with less tension than the rest of us, perhaps even with an aloof amusement. "It would be suicide. If we used the portal from my world as a backdoor, we'd be flying blind. Even assuming we recovered Fire, the army would never forgive us for the casualties to save just one life. As you said, desertions up the wazoo."
"Wait! Warnado, your idea from earlier!"
Kay whips the finger over to the demon-child with inspiration.
"The anomalies," he continues. "The Entity's obsessed."
"Yeah?" Warnado stammers.
"The one in the village," nods Amanda with unsurprised comprehension. I'm surprised she's picked it up before me. "It's certainly close to the tower."
"We attack the village!" Kay yelps in ecstatic revelation. "We establish a beach-head from which to rescue Fire and all the while we-"
"-Investigate just why it's so worried about what Shadow did there," I say, the excitement of a way out seizing me too.
"Precisely!" Kay cheers, lifting Warnado into a firm hug. The demon-mage laughs in confusion. He plants him down and leaps onto Fire's bed. "We have the advantage of framing it as a first step toward the rescue of our commander, a first step toward learning the enemy's weakness and toward stopping the machine."
I recall his days of rabble-rousing. His impassioned appeals against the Brotherhood in the early days of our new life in the Vanilla Craft, rousing people to join him in vanquishing the threat. I remember how many of them survived.
But my cynicism cannot shake my nostalgia. I was the one who made him aware of the Brotherhood's attacks on my newfound territory. He fought to defend me and many other innocents besides. I can still make excuses for him at that point. We were still the good guys.
"So, we clarify the machine's purpose?" asks Destiny. "You sure that's wise."
Kay pauses, swallows gravely and nods.
"Yes. We'll say near enough exactly what has happened. Honesty will win the troops. Won't reveal the Lady yet, but say Silver finally cracked. Takes less explaining. I'll also lean on the image of the martyr Fire, who went off upon learning of this existential threat to risk it all and confirm our fears."
There is a knock at the door. Steve wants to be let back in, sad as a limping dog. Others are behind him. Lucy and those others who 'needed a moment'. It occurs to me what Kay has done.
"Naturally," he says. "We have to persuade the others first."
And he does so.
It has taken two hours to set things up. Magic and the Brines were essential. Banquet tables everywhere, well-laden with food. Wine abounds. This is how he did it in Gaia when he ran the Mining District. Banquet, toast where he announces the bad news, resolute path forward. A few social gatherings without a point so they don't catch on to the pattern. Kay was lucky King Peter kept bankrolling them, let alone name him heir.
We don't join them. Not this time. Lucy stands to the right of the podium. The rest of us stand on the stage in a line. Kay occupies the centre and I stand to his left. Shadow is beside me with a thousand-yard stare. Warnado is on Kay's right. Tyron on his. Aside from Shadow, Fire's affiliates (Voidblade, Urist and Rose) are banished to the fringes of the line. Kay has surrounded himself in his inner circle.
Before I was transported here, Aaron told me he'd formed a similar circle with which to plot against the Brotherhood, even though we needed their help to take down Dominus. I'm happy my captivity spared me the pain of being captain of that ill-fated crew. The Divines couldn't have spared me that only to inflict it here, could they?
But no, he isn't that man yet, I hope. I pray silently, looking to the sky and trying to mask my fear in irritated boredom.
I look for the Prophet. I see him and the other Steve, his bodyguard, on the jungle-coated ridge. They loom and assess. We haven't told them what happened yet.
He nods to Lucy. She raises her hands, calms the crowd. Kay steps forward to the podium. He speaks. He explains to them the threat they face. The machine that will collapse all worlds into one under the Entity's tyranny. That we had no choice but to act as we have. I wonder if that is true. If waiting a day or two longer wouldn't have provided a better solution, but it seems unlikely.
"Your commander, our Fire, went out to verify the reports. In a daring espionage mission, he has snuck into the Tower itself. And thanks to him, we have intelligence about the functioning of the machine, its location and the concern of the enemy. Moreover, we have at last have figured out why they put so much effort into defending the village. Why they hounded you from it only to turn back and fortify. Congregation of the Prophet, we believe we may soon find the Entity's weakness!"
A steward with a torch passes the line of swordsmen before the stage, and my eye is drawn to the transitory glare it creates on their helmets. They kneel in supplication, blades drawn and facing the crowd.
Cheers sound out from the crowd. It appears crowd control is unnecessary. For the moment.
I imagine them rushing the stage. Imagine them tearing us all limb from limb for daring to grant them hope. With the timebomb Shadow to my left, and the condemned tyrant to my right, I am afraid.
The image of the gaping Void burns behind my eyes.
"But this came at a cost: they have captured him."
There is panic, but somehow, I am calm. The bodyguard places a hand on the Prophet's shoulder, face agonised. Kay remains steadfast, gestures for calm. He nods to Lucy and the line of swordsmen rise and begin to pound rhythmically upon their shields. It is like the sound of an army marching. Kay steps out in front of the podium, leans back calmly on it.
"We have a plan as to how to proceed next. We shall rally and, while our enemy believes us decapitated, storm the village from which we fled. From there, we will have a beachhead to assault the Tower, rescue our commander and stop the machine.
"The Entity fortified this village, halted its pursuit of us, because it was scared. It is terrified of a spell that was cast there, and we need to figure out the nature of its fear. Once we know why it is afraid, this being, this thing, shall just be another enemy to vanquish.
"You are strong. You have trained. Come from oppression and improved faster than any army I have seen. I served alongside gods, and I can safely say I have never been more honoured to serve alongside anyone but the soldiers of this army. And I know you must be afraid, disoriented by this news at least, but I believe in you. I trust you. We trust in your abilities, or we would not ask you to do this.
"But our opinion only matters so much. What says the Prophet?"
A crowd is gathering in front of the stage with tentative anger, but now they are diverted to the Prophet's ridge. Kay closes his eyes, spreads his arms and kneels to wait for the verdict. It all hinges on this.
The Prophet shambles forward, mouth ajar.
"The Champion of Life and Death shall be freed!" He shakes from the effort of his declaration and receded looked ecstatic. Tears of joy line his face as he beams at the sight of this future victory. Steve the bodyguard wraps his cloak around his charge and supports his faltering stance.
This approval granted, the crowd is ecstatic, singing and cheering anew.
"In the meantime," Kay announces. "I shall be taking over from Fire, but this means we need a new second-in-command."
My heart becomes leaden, feels like it's trying to shatter my ribs. This is it. My final punishment. I pray it truly is final.
"Tyron Dragoknight, an expert in combat magic shall fill this role."
My execution stayed, I look around in astonishment. Tyron is gravely serious but unfazed. He steps forward. Makes a speech about Fire and how they know each other. About the man who succeeds him, recommending him. He tells tales of heroism past and future. Speaks about courage and virtue and perseverance. Brandishes Kir aloft, and finishes.
And with that, we depart from the stage. Our line fragments into little groups, all aware of how important the coming battle is.
I take Tyron aside. We wait until the others are gone. I don't cast a charm. Shadow can eavesdrop all she likes. I don't care.
"What is it?"
I heave a great amount of air into me to proof against the breath-robbing sorrow that will come. Against the great tightening my lungs will experience. Against the desire to not speak at all.
"It's time I told you the truth about Kay," I say.
"I see," Tyron nods. Kir is silent.
And so, I begin.
