Chapter Ninety-Five: Farewell

Cass Galavis quietly led the way into the deepest part of the Silent Dungeon.

Partway down the long corridor of forbidding gray stone awaited a sealed gate of sturdy metal bars, blocking any passage forward.

Cass stopped at the barred gate and waited, gazing through the metal bars at the sealed stone cell doors lining both sides of the corridor beyond.

The Wrathful Veteran gave a nod to one of his fighters, who immediately shot off the handle of the guard booth's locked door. Stepping inside, the dissenter accessed the local control panel and engaged an override, causing every cell door to swing open.

The barred gate hummed to life and slid aside, retracting into the wall, allowing Cass to walk slowly into the corridor beyond. About halfway down the corridor, Cass paused for a moment to look inside one of the open prison cells, while the dissenters continued ahead. Stepping into the cramped prison cell, Cass breathed deeply as unpleasant memories glinted at her from the depths of her mind. The rawness of her throat after screaming for hours on end. The ache in her hands after banging against these very cell walls with her fists.

Cass ran one of her hands across the rough surface of the walls. She noticed a familiar little crack in the stone, near to the bottom of the wall, and as she crouched down to inspect it more closely, she wondered how Theo Gibbons was doing. She'd learned a while ago from Adamsprite that Theo was on the Battlefield, at the heart of Skaia, but anything could have happened since then. Cass touched the little crack in the wall with two of her fingers.

Time to go.

Cass exited her former cell, stepping back into the corridor just in time to witness a handful of weak, sickly political prisoners being helped by dissenters out of some of the other cells. Several of the prisoners were missing fingers and teeth. One was missing an eye.

After directing three of his fighters to escort the liberated prisoners upstairs, the Wrathful Veteran approached the sealed metal door at the far end of the corridor. Beyond that door awaited the final room in the Silent Dungeon yet to be secured by the Veteran's forces. While one of the dissenters affixed a small charge to the sealed metal door, the Wrathful Veteran ordered everyone else to step back and cover their ears.

"Fire in the hole!" The demolitions specialist backed away and detonated the charge, blowing the metal door wide open.

Several dissenters rushed inside, rifles at the ready, ascertaining quickly that the room beyond was empty before calling out, "Room clear!"

When Cass entered the room, she recognized the interrogation chamber where her finger had been removed by the Draconian Dignitary, and her skin crawled.

The Wrathful Veteran had noticed Cass's reaction, despite Cass's best efforts to hide her discomfort. "You've been here before."

Ignoring her goosebumps, Cass stared at the two restraint chairs in the center of the room, where she and Theo had been immobilized by the Dignitary to make the torture easier. She walked up to one of the chairs and touched the metal restraints. "Yes." Cass walked away from the chair and approached the cabinets by the sink. "This was the Dignitary's playroom," she said, opening the cabinets to reveal the Dignitary's diverse array of surgical instruments and torture devices. "He enjoyed himself."

"The soulless wretch's tools may yet prove useful," said the Wrathful Veteran, turned to one of his fighters. "Gather up the surgical instruments," he ordered, "and have them sent back to the moon. Eastvale Hospital is closest to the Bloody Road, and they must be inundated with civilian casualties. They could use the extra equipment."

Cass stood aside for the dissenter, watching the Veteran's fighter remove the Dignitary's tools from the cabinet. As she watched the surgical instruments disappear into the dissenter's satchel, a quiet disappointment lurked in the shadows of Cass's mind.

"Are you okay?" asked the Wrathful Veteran.

"This is a victory. How many people get the opportunity to return as a liberator to the place where they were tortured?" Cass glanced at the bolt cutters in the Dignitary's cabinet, imagining how the Dignitary might have enjoyed having his fingers lopped off, one joint at a time. Would he have screamed? What would that have sounded like? "I couldn't ask for a more complete and satisfying victory, and yet I only feel as if I've missed an opportunity."

The Veteran frowned. "Oh?"

"The Dignitary died too quickly," Cass admitted. "I would have preferred he suffered, as he made me suffer, and now I will never be able to fully return the favor."

"No," said the Wrathful Veteran. "That is not who you are." After a moment, the Veteran added, "You also bit out his throat. He suffered terribly."

Cass was silent for several seconds before asking, "I don't suppose we have a way to burn this place?"

"It is almost entirely stone and metal," replied the Wrathful Veteran. "We would be trying for a long time."

"Never seeing it again will have to suffice," Cass resolved. "I'm done here."

"Move out," the Veteran ordered his fighters. "We're leaving."

"So, what do you say?" Brygos asked me. "Will you help me?"

"One sec." I turned to Burning Dusk. "Get them to disperse," I said, nervously eyeing the hundreds of gathered cobra warriors. Most of them wielded scavenged energy rifles, now, and I didn't trust the impulsive and hot-tempered warriors to hold their fire. "Post sentries if you want, but get the crowd to disperse. They've already proven themselves trigger-happy, and I don't want anyone shooting at us while we talk."

"Agreed." Burning Dusk moved away to rejoin the other clan leaders, passing along the message.

"Allow me to accompany you, Knight," said Xolotl. "If the alien movess to harm you, I will rip out itss throat."

"I can hear you, you fork-tongued little fucksnake," Brygos hollered from the shuttlecraft entry hatch. "I'd like to see you try."

Xolotl bared his fangs. "I would not even need to move."

"Xolotl, you just got your life back, like, literally ten minutes ago, okay? Chill out. Wait outside the shuttle with Inuyyak, cool off, and make sure no one tries to do anything stupid. And you. Turtle." I glared at the turtle consort. "You're a tourist here, you especially need to chill the fuck out."

"I've a name," the turtle consort grunted. "It's Brygos."

"Brygos the Turtle Pirate, got it." I took a quick breath to keep from getting too flustered, turning to Glimmering Scales and whispering, so that Brygos could not overhear, "Scales, come with us. Keep an eye on this asshole-"

"First I'm a just a generic turtle pirate, now I'm an arsehole?" Brygos probably would have flipped me the bird if his culture knew what flipping the bird was. "Make up your mind, you inconstant little shit."

Xolotl drew his knives.

"How could you hear that?!" I exclaimed, gesturing sharply for Xolotl to put his knives away. "I was whispering. Such bullshit."

"Are you mental? That wasn't whispering," said Brygos. "I'm not sure you know what whispering really is."

"I know what whispering is!" I snapped. "You better have good news. If you've come to be an asshole and deliver only bad news, I will blame the messenger. C'mon, Scales, make sure he behaves."

"He will behave," said Scales, eyeing Brygos's sword and pistol. "His life dependss on it."

Stepping over the squat little corpse of the dead Dersite, Scales and I followed Brygos into the shuttlecraft. The interior was surprisingly spacious. The aft of the cabin included two sleeping berths built into the bulkhead, and as Brygos led us through the narrow corridor to the cockpit, we passed a small storage room and an even smaller bathroom.

"Looks like a flying motel room," I remarked, plopping down into the pilot's chair and resting my feet on one of the consoles. "You came here in style. Do you know how to fly it?"

"I was taught by the best of the mediocre." Brygos sat in the copilot's chair and relaxed. "I told the Dersite I wouldn't kill him if he showed me how to fly this bucket, and to be fair, your friends shot him before I got around to it, so I didn't break any promises."

"Look at you," I said. "A step away from sainthood."

Brygos let out a guttural laugh. "You're much more of a shit than the Witch."

"Witch?" That grabbed my attention. "As in, Witch of Light?"

"The same," confirmed Brygos. "She had manners, at first, then she let down her hair, but you? You just enjoy being an arsehole. It's in your blood."

"Sure." I took my legs off the console and swiveled my chair around to face Brygos directly. "Where is Gwen? Why didn't she come herself?"

"See," said Brygos, "that's the thing. She's dead."

I blinked. "Come again?"

"The Witch of Light is dead," repeated Brygos. "She died."

My glare intensified. "Remember what I said about being an asshole and bringing me bad news?"

"I don't know how else you want me to put it." Brygos shrugged. "Would you like me to try and put a positive good-news spin on your friend's death?"

"What? No, god damn it, I want to know what the fuck happened," I exclaimed, "and if you don't tell me right now, I'm going to throw you to the cobras."

Hundreds of newly liberated political prisoners crowded the corridors and suspended catwalks of the Silent Dungeon's largest cell block, ushered towards the exits by the Wrathful Veteran's fighters.

Because their skin consisted of a hard carapace, Dersites did not become emaciated when they starved, but their carapaces nevertheless grew very brittle. Cass noticed how delicately many of the former prisoners moved, knowing that if they tripped and fell, they could suffer horrific injuries. Feeding the Silent Dungeon's inmates clearly had never been high, or even low, on the Black Queen's list of priorities.

"For some, it will be their first time setting foot outside the Silent Dungeon in millennia," The Wrathful Veteran said to Cass as they made their way across the cell block towards the main exit. "Many of these people attended my rallies. Some fought under me in the previous rebellion, two thousand years ago, and have friends who fight under me still."

The quiet murmuring was abruptly shattered by a jubilant shout from one of the dissenters stationed by the main exit. The dissenter had recognized one of the former inmates, and when the former inmate recognized him back, he began to weep. The two Dersites embraced each other, sharing a kiss as they made their way through the exit.

"The world needs happy stories," murmured the Wrathful Veteran, gazing after the two reunited lovers, wondering what it would be like to share such a connection with another person.

"Have you ever fallen in love?" Cass asked the Veteran while exiting the cell block into a long corridor.

"With dreams and ideas, yes," replied the Veteran, stepping into the corridor after Cass. "Never with people, and I often wonder what I've missed. Or if I've even missed anything. What about you?"

"I'm not sure. I guess I never really have, either." A melancholy smile danced around the corners of Cass's mouth without fully materializing. "I've come close. Maybe under different circumstances?" Her smile faded away. "The world ended and everyone died. It's not a good headspace for romance."

After reaching the end of the corridor, Cass and Veteran passed through an open set of double doors, entering the prison's intake chamber. Just outside the Silent Dungeon's main entrance, which had been blasted open with explosives, Chela and Abigail could be seen organizing teams of Dersite civilians to hand out food, water, and blankets to the thousands of newly liberated prisoners. After getting their immediate supplies, the former prisoners were escorted in lines towards the nearest street, where a series of large transportalizer pads waited to receive them.

Guided by their brethren onto the transportalizers in groups of seven, the newly liberated were whisked away to the pads' counterparts on the Obsidian Moon, where they would heal and begin new lives. Similar exit points had been deployed elsewhere throughout Derse, intended for use by all citizens who chose to leave the incipisphere.

"We will all need to find a way to heal." After passing through the prison's entrance, the Wrathful Veteran glanced up, and he took a moment to enjoy having a sky over his head instead of a ceiling. Even the perpetual night sky of Derse. "When we are safe."

Somewhere up there in the dark sky loomed the White Shadow, whose black hull made it all but invisible to the naked eye. After securing lifesaving medical attention for his critically wounded aboard the White Shadow, the Wrathful Veteran had asked Chela Arevalo if she would allow the Prospitian stealth cruiser to transport a strike force of his choosing to Derse for the immediate liberation of the Silent Dungeon, and Chela had accepted his request.

In the distance, Cass could make out the spiky silhouette of the Amethyst Tower, the feared skyscraper from which Jack Noir had enforced the Queen's ironfisted rule, and she was reminded of the challenges that lay ahead. "You'll need to handle the Black King."

"We will bring down the King." The Veteran had noticed Cass's use of the word you, and it bothered him. "Of that I have no doubt."

Cass grew downcast. "You should know, I—"

"Hey!" interrupted Abigail, who was in the process of stretching. After carrying several heavy crates of supplies for the relief effort, she needed the stretch to keep her muscles from cramping up. "How many more are coming out? We should be down to the last cell block."

"We are," replied the Veteran. "I would say we have another three hundred left."

"Three hundred people." Abigail shook her head as she completed her stretches and stood up. "I stopped counting after the first thousand. The Queen must have really loved sending folks to this place. She practically locked up half of Derse."

"The Queen did not love," remarked the Veteran. "No one capable of love could—"

Whatever the Veteran had been about to say next was lost to the sudden thunder of the White Shadow's railgun. A blazing white projectile ripped across the sky and struck the base of the Amethyst Tower, bringing about the spectacular collapse of the hated symbol of oppression, much to roaring approval of the witnessing Dersites.

As Cass watched the Amethyst Tower fall into its own flames, she remarked to the Veteran, "You're a rare leader who keeps promises. I want you to know that I did not always enjoy our time together, but you have acted with integrity enough for me to consider it a habit of yours. I won't forget what you've done for me."

"Sylph?" The Veteran could not help but feel as if Cass were saying goodbye. "Is there something you wish to tell me?"

"You'll have to kill the Black King without me." Cass knew there would never be a good time rip off the bandaid. "I won't be coming with you."

"You're leaving?" Eztli, leader of Clan Oaxaca, could scarcely believe what she'd just heard me say. "Are you mad?"

"I'm not crazy," I said, glancing at Brygos, who was standing in the shuttlecraft's airlock, leaning against the sealed inner doors. "But I do have to leave."

"But why?" asked Aumanil, leader of Clan Unagwe. "Why musst you leave? We have only jusst achieved our great victory."

"The Knight makess his own choicess for his own reassonss," declared Burning Dusk. "I'm ssure he iss more than willing to share thosse reassonss."

"Um." I cleared my throat. "Well, it's kinda complex, and…" Burning Dusk gave me a subtle look, and I took the hint. "Okay, my friend Gwen is dead. And I know what you're thinking. Who is this friend the Knight has never once mentioned to us in the past? She was my friend, she arrived on another planet the same way I arrived on this one, and Brygos, over there, was one of the first of his people to meet her. Brygos tells me that when she died, Gwen was on the cusp of finding something of immense value."

"Value?" Eztli was intrigued. "Go on. Exactly how valuable?"

"We aren't sure," I replied. "I'm not sure. The sprite in me isn't sure, either. Brygos's people call it the Library of All. Many from Brygos's world believe the Library contains wisdom shedding light on why we exist. Brygos thinks it holds great wealth. Others believe it contains ancient technologies hidden after the War of the Nobles."

"What war iss thiss?" asked Aumanil. "I have never heard of any ssuch war."

"You have, you just call it a different name," I pointed out. "I first learned about it from the stories your elders shared with me. The war took place ten thousand years ago, and your stories know it as the Cataclysm. When Skaia went dark."

"Yess, in the Time of the Firsst SSongss." Aumanil nodded. "Fire rained from the ssky, darkness sseeped into the world from the void beyond, and the light of the Great SSky Flame wass extinguished. The Old One, SShe Who Walkss Tall, left our world to bring back the dawn, bringing three companionss with her to sserve as witnessess. After the Great SSky Flame wass rekindled, her companionss returned to pass down the sstory. The Old One did not."

"Yep, that's the War of the Nobles, alright," I remarked. "A small piece of it, at least. Right on the money. You better believe Dersites were the reason for all the fire raining from the sky, I've seen that for myself, but I honestly have no idea how the hell they could have made Skaia go dark. That might have been something else. Something worse."

"What do you think of these claims about the Library?" interjected Burning Dusk. "You did not come here to disscuss our mythology."

"I think the Library is worth checking out," I replied. "I'm not interested in the wisdom or wealth, but if there's any truth to the claims of ancient hidden technologies, that alone is worth investigating. We're going up against the rest of the Dersite military. We're going to need surprises."

"That may be, but I do not trusst that thing." Eztli glared at Brygos, who continued to wait impatiently in the shuttlecraft airlock. He winked back at Eztli, much to her chagrin. "For all we know, that creature iss leading you to your death."

"Which is why I won't be going alone." I turned to Xolotl. "Will you help protect me if this turns out to be a trap?"

"Me?" asked Xolotl, all too aware of Aumanil's silent and palpable disapproval. Burning Dusk did not seem enthused, either. "My passt conduct sspeakss for itsself. Are you certain?"

"Yes, it does." I ignored the unspoken opinions of the clan leaders. "And yes, I am."

Xolotl held my gaze for another moment before breaking the tension with a single nod. "Then I will come."

"Scales? Inuyyak? How about you?" I asked. "Want to be the first cobras in ten thousand years to go to space?"

"Of coursse," rumbled Inuyyak. "I am inssulted that you had to assk. Did you honesstly think for a moment that we would allow you to blunder off on your own?"

"Chaoss followss wherever you go," Glimmering Scales agreed. "SSomeone musst clean up after you."

"Chaos?" I wrinkled my nose. "Sure, that's one word for it."

"That iss the only word for it," retorted Scales.

"Welcome aboard, then."

"Fuck me," hollered Brygos from his perch in the shuttlecraft's airlock. "Are we leaving before old age sets in?"

"Quiet, you," I snapped at Brygos before turning to address the three gathered senior clan leaders. "Well? Looks like we have a solid away team. Can you keep things going here for a while? Make sure no one freaks the fuck out and starts a civil war while we're gone."

"We will certainly have to, now." The sass underneath Aumanil's parting shot was faint, but there was no mistaking its presence. The leader of Clan Unagwe exchanged a few private words with his kinsman Inuyyak before leaving.

"Thiss had better not be a wasste of our time," Eztli said to me. "Thank you for intervening on behalf of our Firsst Warrior." She turned to Xolotl. "Enssure the Knight doess not wasste time."

"He will not," assured Xolotl.

"C'mon, you take so long!" heckled Brygos from the airlock as Eztli left after Aumanil. The turtle consort stood up and unsealed the airlock's inner doors. "I'm starting the engine, just come aboard when you're done."

"Inuyyak, Xolotl, would you—?" I motioned after Brygos, who ducked into the shuttlecraft and vanished from view. "Keep your eyes on him."

"Knight." Xolotl headed up the shuttlecraft's boarding ramp and passed through the airlock.

"I will watch him," Inuyyak grunted, following Xolotl up the boarding ramp. "I am not putting my eyeballss on him."

Burning Dusk, who up until this moment had been speaking quietly with his son, now embraced Glimmering Scales one last time before bidding him farewell. "You're no hatchling anymore," he said to Scales. "You're on the adventure of a lifetime. Who would have thought the Knight would find his way into our company?"

"I will honor Clan Nathair on our journey," Scales assured his father.

"You will be the firsst to leave our world ssince the Time of the Firsst SSongss," Burning Dusk reminded Scales. "You repressent far more than Clan Nathair, now. Remember thiss as you interact with the repressentativess of other worldss. And Knight," Dusk turned to me, "Thank you for all that you have given to our people. No matter what ssome of the other clan leaderss may ssay, you are one of uss. You united uss in wayss we never dreamed possible, and your miracle will not be ssquandered. When you return, we will be ready. Until then, my friend, farewell."

Burning Dusk took his leave.

"C'mon Scales, let's go to space." I stepped onto the boarding ramp and made my way into the shuttlecraft. "We're gonna have a space party. Are you ready for the space party?"

Scales followed me up the ramp into the airlock. "I don't believe partying will be an appropriate—"

"Oh, lighten up Scales, I was joking," I chided as we entered the shuttlecraft's cabin. "Just saying, though. We're gonna have time to ourselves. Letting loose a bit might not be the worst idea."

Brygos was in the cockpit, sitting in the pilot's chair, closely supervised by Glimmering Scales and Inuyyak. "Welcome aboard, latecomers!" hollered the turtle consort. He entered a new command into his console, which prompted the boarding ramp to retract and the airlock doors to hiss shut. "Don't s'pose you brought any rum?"

"Fresh out of rum," I replied.

"No matter," grinned Brygos. "We actually have some in storage, courtesy of this bucket's previous owners. Now, hold onto something, this may get bumpy."

I barely had time to sit in the copilot's seat before Brygos fully engaged the shuttlecraft's engines and launched us into the air, streaking past the sky rivers, through the softly-luminescent violet rainclouds, and into the open sky above, which gradually shifted from a navy blue to the empty midnight black of incipisphere space.

As we left the Land of Rain and Rivers far behind and below us, perhaps never to return, I wondered how Cass was doing. Was she still in the clutches of the Draconian Dignitary?

She was probably dead.

I took a deep breath and gazed out the shuttlecraft's windshield at Skaia, which shined gently in the far distance.

The ruins of the Amethyst Tower burned in the distance.

Cass watched the Obsidian Moon, which was now about the size of a cantaloupe in Derse's sky, slowly shrinking with each passing minute as it drifted further away from Derse, deeper into the darkness of the Furthest Ring. Soon, she would be living on that moon, swallowed whole by the boundless void between universes.

Was that to be her home for the rest of her life? It did not seem like much of a life.

"Sylph." The Wrathful Veteran's voice pulled Cass from her reverie. He had been silent since Cass informed him of her intention to part ways, expecting Cass to have more to say, and when his expectations were not met, the Veteran broke his silence. "You cannot be serious."

"I am," affirmed Cass.

"Why must you leave?" asked the Veteran. "Why now?"

"It's difficult to explain," Cass said.

"Try."

"Dwelling in the Furthest Ring are the souls of our dead selves and friends." Cass watched as a group of seven Dersites stepped onto the nearest transportalizer pad, vanishing in a flash of light. "I have friends there who will need my help."

"Sylph, you are not making sense," said the Veteran, his frown deepening. "How could you possibly know any of that?"

"I met with Anubis," replied Cass. "My Denizen. He offered me a simple Choice: Leave or Stay. Then he showed me the consequences for each. If I leave the incipisphere, I can help my friends in the Furthest Ring, and they can help a lot more people. If I stay, none of that will happen, our timeline will fracture, and we will all suffer for it."

The Wrathful Veteran stared silently at Cass, at a loss for words.

"Like I told you," said Cass, "it's difficult to explain."

"Without your help, this liberation would not be taking place," insisted the Veteran. "The Queen would have annihilated us. When we face the Black King, we will need everything we have. How shall we attain victory without your support?"

"I didn't win anything for you," Cass reminded the Veteran. "You and your forces wiped out the commandos. Chela and Abigail separated the Queen from her ring of power. I contributed, certainly, but do not think yourself incapable without me, because it simply isn't true."

"But Sylph, you must understand-"

"This is not up for debate," Cass firmly interrupted. "I am leaving on the Obsidian Moon, and that is final." After taking another breath, when Cass spoke again, her tone softened. "I am not the last Hero. Theo is still alive. He is on the Battlefield with the Prospitian Army. He will be able to help you, as will others. Help may come from where you least expect."

"Nice speech," remarked Abigail Tarrant, much to Cass and the Veteran's surprise. Neither had noticed Abigail approaching. "Or was that a prophecy? I mean, your robes are pretty rad, don't get me wrong, but that whole spiel made you look like you were trying to be an oracle for Halloween."

Cass started to reply, "It's not a prophecy—"

"You know what? Forget the oracle quip, that's not important," Abigail cut in. "Why don't you shed some light on your choice to abandon ship? Did you just say you were leaving with the Obsidian Moon?"

"Yes, but—"

"Chela!" Abigail hollered over to Chela Arevalo, interrupting Cass yet again. "You're going to want to hear this."

Chela sent a dissenter to open a new crate of water bottles before making her way over to the impromptu gathering. "Is it so important that it cannot wait until the last of these refugees are through?"

"Go on," Abigail prompted Cass. "Share the big news."

"Big news?" Chela frowned, wondering if her time was being wasted. "What news?"

Cass closed her eyelids for a moment, allowing herself the luxury of an unseen eye-roll at having to repeat herself so many times. "I'm leaving." Third time's the charm. "I'm going to the Moon, and I'm leaving the incipisphere. And you are more than welcome to voice your dissent, but know in advance that it will not change my mind. I need to go."

Chela studied Cass for a few seconds, carefully measuring her response. "I trust you have good and beneficial reasons for doing so?"

"I do," replied Cass.

Chela ventured a little further: "And nothing we say or do will change your mind?"

"Afraid not."

Chela Arevalo extended a hand to Cass, which Cass accepted. Cupping Cass's hand in both of her own, Chela squeezed gently for a moment.

"Buena suerte," Chela wished Cass. "And I hope to see you again."

END OF ACT VI