Chapter Sixty-Six: Parole

Gwen Twymann was mumbling obscenities when she woke back up. Noticing what she was doing, Gwen simply let the swear words fall away into a wide yawn.

Aristophanes arched a brow at her from across the jail cell. "Surely you are not tiring of my company, Witch?"

"Mm, no." Gwen stretched and sat up, resting her head back against the stone wall that her cot was next to. "No, I...uh… Bad dream, that's all…"

Gwen could not remember exactly how long she had been sitting in this jail cell along with Aristophanes. Two days? Three days? Jesus, how did people survive long stretches of time like this without going nuts? Gwen's mind moved fast enough that it chafed when it was confined to a small room.

"Bad dreams, aye," Aristophanes chuckled. "Anything worth sharing?"

Gwen's throat tightened, the sound of gunfire still echoing through her mind, the sight of Cass's dream self falling… Gwen shook her head once. "Not a 'sharing' kind of dream. Things are finally moving forward… I just wish I had more control over 'which direction'."

"Is it true that when a Hero falls asleep, they wake up someplace else?" Aristophanes asked.

"Yeah," Gwen replied. For a moment, she was puzzled that the very knowledgeable turtle-consort had not known such a simple fact, before remembering that - to the consorts - Heroes were the stuff of legends. Gwen found it amazing they knew as much as they did about the Nobles, who'd lived ten thousand years before. How much did Humanity remember about the year 8000 BC? Not very much. "We have dream selves. When I fall asleep, I wake up in a purple planet full of fucking psychos."

"Derse, you mean?" Aristophanes asked.

"I...yeah…" Gwen blinked in surprise. "How…? How do you know about Derse?"

"We know more than you think," Aristophanes replied. "Though, I confess, we did not know about dream selves! That was something that always plagued me in the past - how the Nobles, during the last great war, were seemingly able to operate simultaneously on Prospit or Derse as well as their own respective worlds."

Before Gwen could follow up more on this line of questioning, the sound of light footsteps entered the cell from the hallway outside. Gwen and Aristophanes both turned their attention to the open, barred wall of their cell just in time to see none other than Alexander, the Prefect of the Assembly, accompanied by a single guard. At the Prefect's nod, the guard produced a ring of keys, inserted one into the lock, opened the cell door.

"Come to join us, brother?" Aristophanes greeted the older turtle-consort. "Very thoughtful of you. It gets so very dull, here, without you."

"Silence, Aristophanes," Alexander sighed, signalling for the cell door to be closed behind him. He adjusted the sleeve of his coat before sitting down in the cell's sole chair, right between the two cots. "I must apologize for placing you in custody, Witch. Some discretion was needed, and I would like to explain myself. Tell me, does anything in these images ring a bell for you?"

With that, Alexander reached into his jacket and pulled out three glossy photographs. This surprised Gwen - she hadn't thought her consorts would be technologically advanced enough to take 21st Century photographs. How much did she still not know about her consorts?

Gwen took the photographs. All three of them were pictures of Dersites. In all three pictures, the Dersites were in jail cells eerily similar to the one Gwen and Aristophanes were currently sitting in. They were also quite dead. "How do you have pictures of Dersites?" Gwen asked the Assembly Prefect.

"It is confirmed that they are Dersites, then. Good." Alexander took the photographs back from Gwen, passed them to his brother, who peered at them with an expression of pure bewilderment. "These images were taken of outsider prisoners who were recovered from the oceans, roughly ten years ago. This is not the first time this has happened, obviously - merely the first time it happened after we reverse-engineered image-capturing technology from these aliens."

Aristophanes's confusion was only increasing. "Reverse-engineered…?"

"We are under surveillance, you understand," Alexander explained, holding out a hand for the photographs, pocketing them once again. "Under surveillance from these carapacian scum. Walk with me."

Alexander rose back to his feet, nodded to the guard in the hallway. The guard opened the cell door and stepped aside, allowing the Prefect out. Gwen and Aristophanes had no choice but to stand up and follow the older turtle-consort out.

"Believe it or not, but the leadership of this world knows a great deal of what happens off this world," Alexander said to the two former prisoners, leading them down the central hallway of the dungeon and back into the dark spiral stair that led back to the surface. "The fighting between Prospit and Derse has never truly died down since before the War of the Nobles. This war technically ended in a stalemate for the two Kingdoms - it was we consorts who truly lost. Worlds devastated from the War, and the Cataclysm that followed, entire cultures wiped out…"

The party moved up the stairs. Gwen's mind was literally bursting with questions, but she bit down on the insides of her cheeks. Alexander continued to explain away, even as they reached the top of the stairs and emerged into the lower level of the Assembly building. Rather than continue upstairs to the surface, however, Alexander turned down a side hallway, heading deeper into the lower level.

"To understand our current situation, you must understand something about Dersite Protocol. The Prospitians were not our friends, per se, but their cause was aligned with the Heroes, so we were natural allies," Alexander outlined. "The Prospitians did not have a large enough military to protect us - they spend their resources guarding themselves and Skaia. So the consort worlds fell under the control of Derse. They only interfered on two worlds - the Land of Crystals and Silence, to mine the omnicrystal after the disappearance of the Salamanders; and the Land of Rain and Rivers."

"Adam's planet…" Gwen made the connection. "The Cobras?"

"Yes, the Cobras." Alexander nodded. He opened the door at the end of the hallway, ushering Gwen and Aristophanes into what appeared to be a wine cellar. The guard shut the door behind them and remained out in the hallway. Alexander headed straight to the opposite end of the cellar, moving through the aisles of stored wine bottles. "They do not have our technology, but they are telekinetic - some of them can even produce fire. If the Cobra tribes were left to unite and prosper as a society, they would have eventually posed a huge threat to the Dersites. They are the deadliest consorts in the Medium. And so, six hundred years ago, Derse sent in an entire army and subjugated the Cobra tribes, kept them separate from each other, kept that threat from ever developing."

Alexander placed a hand on a slightly discolored wine bottle, pushing it inwards until it made a loud click. There was a soft, mechanical hiss, followed by an entire section of the wine cellar wall swinging open, revealing a dark stone hallway. There were windows built into the walls of the corridor, and Gwen was able to get glimpses of strange occurrences on the other side. She saw what appeared to be scientists and technicians, poring over several tables of Dersite weaponry, diligently taking notes.

"They might have done the same to us, you understand," Alexander pointed out, striding past the windows and side hallways that branched out from this main one, instead heading straight to the end of the hallway, which contained yet another spiral staircase - this one leading downwards, back into the earth. "If they had known how advanced our technology has become, the Dersites would have invaded this world centuries ago. So we keep our technology hidden. We keep our secrets. It is not easy, withholding knowledge, nor is it painless. You, Aristophanes, were spilling some dangerous secrets to the open air. And so I had no choice but to remove both you from the public eye. But I did this because, believe it or not, I am on your side. Here we are…"

The staircase reached a small square room. The symbol of the Light Aspect had been carved into one of the walls. Alexander placed a hand on the center of the symbol. The Light Aspect symbol glowed bright yellow for a moment, as if it were scanning the turtle-consort Prefect's hand. Then it split in two, both halves of the wall retreating into the earth, revealing the chamber beyond.

It was a teardrop-shaped chamber - the 'point' of the tear being the entrance. In the wider part of the chamber, there was a stone sarcophagus resting on top of an altar, the Light symbol emblazoned upon its surface. Two pillars stood on either side of the altar, both glowing a with a subdued white light. Gwen recognized it as omnicrystal.

The wall behind the sarcophagus, like the walls of the Assembly chamber, bore a beautiful mural. This mural depicted sunlight finally breaking through a veil of dark clouds. There was a ship floating in the air above the Metropolis - which was much smaller than its modern size. On the ship, a one-eyed turtle-consort carried the corpse of deceased Noble of Light. On the ground, in the city, weeping turtle-consorts had gathered to receive the ship.

"The Noble of Light's Tomb," Alexander proclaimed. "Much like the Library of All, most of our peoples know of its existence only through myth and legend. Only a handful of us know that this Tomb is located directly beneath our capital building."

"Do you keep it a secret from everyone else?" Gwen asked, traces of accusation in her tone. She did not like keeping secrets.

"Yes," Alexander replied bluntly. "Imagine, for a moment, what this Tomb would look like after enduring nearly ten thousand years of grave robbers and treasure hunters. It would have been looted beyond recognition before your arrival, Witch. And the less those bloody Dersites know of the more sensitive aspects of our history, the better."

"Okay, so where is this 'key' you mentioned?" Gwen asked.

"Here…" Alexander gestured to the mural behind the sarcophagus. "When the Cataclysm befell us, the Noble of Light left our world and traveled to Skaia in order to put an end to the darkness. He must have known that he was fated to die on the journey, for he had already constructed this Tomb before he left. He had already hidden the key to finding the Library of All and made it so that - and this is what the legends claim - only you, the Witch, would be able to retrieve it."

"The point, brother, get to the point," Aristophanes interjected.

"Okay, then…" Gwen murmured, the gears and cogs turning in her mind. "What exactly do I get out of this if I go ahead and get this key? I'm warning you, I'm not going to be happy if it ends up being more jail time. Don't piss me off."

"When the key is secured, you will lead the effort to find the Library," Alexander explained. "A lone corsair vessel conducting the search will not draw any attention from Dersite surveillance."

"You would work with corsairs, Alexander?" Aristophanes could not keep the surprise out of his voice. "Is this my true brother I see standing before me?"

"Things are different now." Alexander gestured towards Gwen with one hand. "Now then, Witch...the key. This whole mural, here, hides a combination lock. Very simple, really. We just don't know the combination. Nor do we understand your runes."

"Our runes…?"

Alexander pulled another object from one of his inner pockets - instead of photographs, this was a simple metal box about the size of a saltshaker. The older turtle-consort activated the box. It produced a high-pitched, fluctuating tone that reminded Gwen of binaural beats. Then Alexander turned the dial on the side of the box, raising the tone to a level beyond Human hearing.

The omnicrystal pillars around the sarcophagus reacted to the sound box by shimmering in unison with the fluctuating tones. As the pitch went way up, the bluish-white light emitted by the omnicrystal shifted to a deep indigo, plunging the Tomb into near-darkness, similar to a room with a blacklight. And, like how a blacklight would cause anything white to 'pop out', the new indigo light from the omnicrystal revealed a row of very familiar symbols on the mural that had not been visible in the normal light.

Gwen was looking at the English alphabet, each individual letter glowing somewhere on the mural depicting the return of the Noble of Light's body, like invisible ink. "Oh, those runes."

"Yes, the ancient runes," Alexander replied. "The Noble taught us to write with these original runes, but...well, I am sure you can imagine just how extensively both the written and verbal components of a language can change over a period of ten thousand years. We quite forgot how to use these original runes."

"Yeah, okay, interesting." Gwen resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "What am I supposed to be typing here? Your Noble's birthday?"

"Heavens no, girl." Alexander shook his head. "The access combination is his true name."

Gwen raised an eyebrow, feeling skeptical despite herself. "Really? His name? That's all? That's the big combination that only I can solve?"

"The Noble had multiple names, but he never shared his true name with us," Alexander said. "And if he ever did share it, it was never written down and was therefore lost to time. Now...if you will?"

Gwen stepped around the sarcophagus and stood in front of the mural. As she lifted a hand to the glowing alphabet, Gwen noticed that she was staring at the image of the Noble of Light's lifeless body, held in the arms of the one-eyed turtle-consort who was carrying him off the ship. She made two connections from that image - the first connection was that the one-eyed consort was the same as the one-eyed turtle-consort in the mural upstairs, the one who was holding the Noble as an infant. The second connection was that the ship in this mural was none other than the Viridian Wind.

Gwen shook her head once, clearing her thoughts. She started by pressing a finger to the 'G' on the hidden mural alphabet. The glowing letter gave a faint flash of indigo light at her touch, matching the omnicrystal's color for a moment. Gwen quickly spelled out 'GRAFTON', surprised at the sudden surge of emotion that tugged at her chest and throat. She missed her grandfather.

Gramps had merged with Gwen's sprite shortly after entry into the Medium, bidding her farewell as she passed through her first gate and ended up on the island the Viridian Wind found her on. Gwen had not seen her Gramps since, had no idea if he was still even alive… Like the adult guardians of all Gwen's friends, her Gramps had vanished.

After entering in her grandfather's name, Gwen stepped back from the mural as a small, square compartment popped open in the ground. Within the compartment was what appeared to be a small glass pyramid, about the size of a paperweight. It was a prism.

Alexander turned off his sound box, allowing the hue of the omnicrystal light to return to normal, illuminating the Tomb once more.

Gwen retrieved the prism, gingerly lifting it from the secret compartment, which slid back shut when she removed its contents. At first, she noticed nothing abnormal about the prism. But when Gwen held it up to her eye, she realized that there were images and numbers swirling around within the glass, invisible to the naked eye unless held very close.

Within the strange prism, Gwen could see two sets of numbers - one that appeared to be coordinates, and another that seemed to denote a certain time of day. The image in the pyramid was one of a giant prism-crystal, like the ones that protruded from the ground and sea all over this planet, shining with a beam of green light. Unable to make heads or tails of it, Gwen passed the prism over to Aristophanes, who took his own look.

"Nautical coordinates," Aristophanes grunted, confirming Gwen's suspicions. "I'm unsure as to the meaning of the green light, but those numbers are definitely nautical coordinates and a timestamp."

Alexander peered into the pyramidal prism once for himself, nodding in agreement. "Perhaps investigating these coordinates at the specified time of day will answer your questions," the older turtle-consort suggested. "In any case, you have your quest laid out for you. Thank you, Witch, for unlocking these secrets. It pains us so to have secrets, even more so to have them kept from us. And this one has been kept for ten thousand years."

Alexander took Gwen and Aristophanes out of the Tomb and back upstairs to the Assembly chamber, where they were greeted by a troupe of armed guards. The guards escorted them directly back to the harbor, where the Viridian Wind still waited.

Gwen could not help but feel disappointed as she studied the buildings and structures they walked past. She had been looking forward to exploring the Metropolis. She had been looking forward to mingling with more of her consorts. Instead, she had been jailed for several days, taken to the supposed final resting place of someone from the distant past who was somehow also her grandfather.

This had not been a fun trip.

Still, though… As Aristophanes helped Gwen into their wooden skiff and cast off from the dock, Gwen turned her gaze to the Viridian Wind and found herself smiling. She'd missed those crazy corsair bastards. Some of them, at least.

"Well, I must confess...that did not go quite as I planned," Aristophanes admitted. He continued to row, pushing the skiff across the small swells of the bay towards the anchored corsair ship. "I apologize for the time spent in prison, though I do hope you will consider it time spent with good company."

"You didn't mention that the president dude was your brother," Gwen remarked. "Or that you hated each other's guts."

"I do not hate my brother, nor does he hate me," Aristophanes said, pausing momentarily from rowing to speak his mind. "We love each other very much, actually. That love, unfortunately, has become clouded. He was always more of an adventurer than me, if you could believe that. But he never had the strength to break free from the expectations of his elders - he went on to join the Assembly, while I tasted true freedom on the seas. I understand his bitterness."

Aristophanes continued to row. Roughly twenty minutes after casting off from the dock, the skiff was bumping up against the hull of the Viridian Wind.

"Ahoy down there!" one of the corsairs - a gunner's mate named Brygos - hollered down to the skiff as it approached. "Are me eyes shot through with madness, or is our lovely Witch about to return to us?"

"Our lovely Witch, aye!" another corsair shouted from the rigging above. "And our even lovelier first mate!" At that, the entire deck of the Viridian Wind rumbled with laughter and hooting catcalls.

Aristophanes chuckled quietly, but hid the grin before any of his men could see it. "Lower the bloody lines, you jackanapes, before I have the bosun flog the lot of you!"

The captain of the Viridian Wind was waiting on deck to greet Gwen and Aristophanes by the time the skiff was secured and raised from the water. Gwen knew that it was custom in the navy for officers to ask the captain for permission to come aboard, but Aristophanes merely climbed over the railing and set foot on the deck without asking beforehand. Corsairs were a bit more informal.

"Welcome aboard, Witch," the captain helped Gwen out of the boat, giving a nod to the crewmen working the lines. "Aristophanes, I believe you have some explaining to do."

"You would be correct, sir," Aristophanes hummed in agreement. "But first, may we set sail and leave this bay? I do not like having the Fleet breathing down our necks, here."

The captain gave a single nod. "Agreed. Give the orders. Join me in my cabin when we are clear of the bay. That goes for you, too, Witch."

While Aristophanes and the crew set about readying the Viridian Wind, Gwen made her way up to the bow of the ship. The ship's emerald-green sails were unfurled, flapping aimlessly for a few moments before catching the wind and ballooning outward. Gwen gripped the rail as the Viridian Wind pitched forward.

Gwen closed her eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath, relishing the smell of the sea. She opened her eyes again, fixing her gaze on the mouth of Metropolis Bay, waiting in the distance, and beyond...the open ocean. Her quest. She was finally moving, again, as Light was supposed to.

Gwen held that thought, and she held it close. She watched Skaia as it started to sink down to the west. It would be nightfall before long, and then Gwen would go belowdecks to get some sleep. She only wished that she could have a pleasant dream, for once.

Shaking her head to avoid thinking about her dreams, Gwen closed her eyes once more and settled for enjoying the feeling of the light breeze on her face.

"Good to be moving, again…"