A few days after the great triton attack, Sora was checking the reports from the coastline when the door opened, and Stephanie Dola entered the room, accompanied by Jibril and Ramiel. Sora did not expect another saturation attack any time soon, but preferred to be safe than sorry, and so he had placed some thirty Flügel on reserve to replace Jibril. He smiled, stood up and went to greet his guests
"Good morning Your Majesty… Ladies…"
Ramiel bowed "Good morning, Emperor Sora… Please allow me to congratulate in person for your great victory against the tritons"
the beautiful, melodic voice of the blonde Flügel made her greeting sound almost like a song.
Sora scratched his head, embarrassed "Thank you, Ramiel… you are very kind. It was Jibril that did the heavy lifting though… literally!"
the women laughed, and the emperor gestured toward the table. After they all had taken place, he asked the princess an update on the home front.
"People are on the whole satisfied with the way this conflict is going. The people on the coast can see that a lot has been done to guarantee their safety, and that the incursions have become more sporadic. Also, raising that massive wall in the middle of the sea was an impressive demonstration of power, which also boosted confidence… Are the tritons still attacking the coasts?"
He made a face "I just checked the reports. They are reduced to some very-low-intensity guerrilla… number of attacks are down by more than 90% compared with last week. Anything else?"
Stephanie grew more serious "Well, those whose loved ones have been kidnapped are very apprehensive, of course, and would like to know more of what is being done to free the hostages"
"Very understandable… and maybe it's time that we do something about it…" Sora turned to Jibril "Did we receive any answer from that siren Duchess… Amira, if I recall correctly?"
She shook her head "No, nothing so far"
He nodded "I see, then what about the location spells that you placed on both the plaque and the Duchess herself?"
Jibril smirked "I will let Ramiel handle this"
Sora turned to the blonde, blue-eyed Flügel, that nodded
"Let's start by saying that, for the moment, both location spells are still working properly…"
She made a gesture, and what looked like a holographic screen appeared out of thin air. Ramiel put a finger on the screen, before addressing her audience
"This is a map of the ocean across the coast of Elkia. The golden line tracks the position of Amira's diadem, while the silver line tracks the position of the plaque with the message for the ruler of the sirens.
As you can see from the map, the Plaque have been fairly stationary ever since it stopped moving, while the diadem was far more mobile. It even relocated at a significant distance from the plaque for a few days.
All this suggests that the plaque have been in the sirens' capital – Oceando – ever since Amira delivered it to her rulers, while Amira herself have been moving around. It is likely that she made a travel to some other location, which could be a neighboring city"
Ramiel then turned to Jibril "Have you recalled anything suspicious from your meeting with her?"
Her friend shook her head "It really did not seem to me that she had any suspect. I do not believe that those locations are staged to throw us off course, let alone a trap"
Sora made a face "Even so, we should probably verify that… the plan requires a lot of magical energy, and it's going to be quite dangerous as it is…"
Everybody nodded, then Stephanie made a question
"Do you have anybody in mind for that?"
Sora sighed "Not yet. A recon mission in the enemy capital is going to be dangerous in its own right. Even more so because nobody has been there for thousands of years!"
Ramiel chimed in "If I may, Lord Sora, I would like to volunteer"
He looked at her "Are you sure about this?"
"I am, Lord Sora. I have been monitoring those spells for a while, and I feel quite invested now"
Sora gave a quick look to Jibril, that just nodded, and then mulled over it for a second. Ramiel did not play any special role in the plan he was putting together, so there should be no problem in giving her the mission.
"I have one condition"
Ramiel nodded "I have sworn to obey to your will, Lord Sora"
"If you think that there is anything I can do to support you… I order you to tell me"
Immediately after the meeting, Sora started preparations. The plan required a number of things that the Pledges would not usually allow, and so he had to muddle the waters a little bit.
First, he prepared a parchment with the instructions for Jibril, made eight copy of it, and then placed each of the nine documents in a sealed envelope. He then prepared a tenth envelope, with a different set of instructions. He put great care in not leaving any distinctive marks on any of the envelopes, then placed them all into a box, closed his eyes as he mixed the content, and finally chose one of them in a completely random way. He burned the other nine copies, paying attention not to get even a glimpse of the burning messages to avoid recognizing them.
For the next step, he cut some parchment into a total of twenty small rectangles, each as large as an introduction card. On eighteen of the rectangles, he just wrote 'zero', while on the last two, he wrote the number 'two thousand'. He put the two 2000-cards into a small envelope each, and then put those into a larger one. He then prepared other nine large envelopes, each containing a couple of smaller ones, and proceeded to randomly choose one using the same procedure he used for Jibril's orders. The other nine envelopes, together with their content, were also burned in a discreet way.
Sora opened the surviving envelope and placed the two small envelopes in a pile together with the instruction for Jibril. There was a 90% chance that those letters included the orders that would maximize the success of the operation, but there was another 10% that the content was something else entirely. He felt the urge to open them, but resisted it. It was not over yet.
He prepared a message for Azrael, and another for the Senate of Elven Garde. Those were quite long missives, with more detailed instructions for the plan. By the time he was done writing, he was about to have a cramp in the hand.
He leaned back on the back of the chair for a few seconds, then seemed to address the empty room.
"Sachiel, Shamsel… can you hear me?"
On the rampart of Avant Heim, Azrael was on the lookout. As the Chairman of the Council of the Eighteen Wings, she could have probably avoided that menial work, but that was not her style.
Also, she was marveling at how the binocular was actually increasing her ability to see. Being born with an incredibly acute sight, she had always assumed that she did not need the contraptions that lesser races like the Immanity were using to improve their abilities. It had actually never occurred to her that a piece of hardware could allow even her to see things that she could normally not detect. That was, at least, until Jibril had mentioned a conversation that she had with the Emperor.
She suddenly felt a presence behind her
"Any problems, Raphael?" she asked without changing position
"A message from the Emperor" the newcomer said flatly
Azrael smirked "Speaking of the devil…"
The first Flügel ever created left the observation post, and took the envelope from her lieutenant. She tilted her head in surprise, as she found that the envelope included both a message and a smaller envelope. She shrugged, and skimmed through the message.
The Emperor was requesting her to choose 400 Flügel to take part in an upcoming operation, nothing weird there. The weird part was that the message then included the formation that the 400 warriors had to take, specifying that the center of the formation had to be translated in a random direction by the amount specified in the smaller envelope.
Azrael was puzzled. Why on Disboard didn't Emperor Sora simply write down that piece of information? And why a random direction?
The leader of Avant Heim was about to send a message on her own asking clarification, when suddenly she realized something. Her lips creased, and her pretty face was graced by a predatory smile.
Looks like I did the right call after all… my Lord
The region of Rebis, Elven Garde, was one of the most remote and inhospitable part of the Empire. Far away from the sea and surrounded by mountains on all sides, almost no rain could reach the plateau, which reached quite high above sea level, making it very cold most of the year. On top of that, the rock substrate in the area was too brittle for large-scale excavation works, and so the entire region was basically unsettled.
On that day, a casual observer crossing that part of Rebis would have spotted little else but barren ground and scattered boulders as far as the eyes could see. The only sound to be heard: the howling of the wind. Suddenly, a spot appeared at the horizon. It was a bright spot. So bright, in fact, that made the rest of the landscape look dim, as if it had sucked up all of the light available. Then it returned it. With interests.
The entire sky went white, and a huge sphere of light – thousands of times more luminous than the sun of Disboard – rose in the sky, coalescing into darker and darker tones, before finally spreading into a mushroom-like cloud. A giant conflagration had gone off, and the entire landscape trembled.
When the smoke cleared several minutes later, a crater of about 4 km in diameter had appeared in the middle of the cold desert. Floating directly above ground zero, Sachiel silently inspected the result of her attack and nodded to herself.
"Very nice, sister!" Shamsel cheerfully commented beside her "But what about this one?"
Before the stoic blunette could react, the redhead grinned and unleashed a barrage of attacks upon the hollow below them. A ring of giant explosions crowned the central peak in the middle of the crater. Again and again, the ground trembled, as the crater rim was pushed even further away from ground zero.
"Try to control yourself, sister… or we will have to fill it up afterwards" Sachiel admonished her companion
"I know, I know…" the redhead said cheerfully with a huge smile while at the same time making a gesture of dismissal. She then proceeded to let out a blast that was everything but controlled. The crater had now more or less the shape of an egg.
"That was enough going wild, sister… "
"Oh, c'mon, please… just a little bit more!"
The red-eyed blunette shook her head "We should start refining the shape"
"But I don't wanna!" Shamsel whined to her unimpressed sister
"It must be a square… the Emperor was quite clear about that"
"And what do you think he is going to do, if it's not square enough?" the redhead asked with a smug smile of defiance.
Sachiel shrugged "Not sure… but maybe he will force you to eat his cake again…"
Shamsel deadpanned, swallowed hard, and then went back to work with a much more serious attitude.
One week later, everything was ready for the recon mission into the sirens' heartland. Because she had never been to Oceando, Ramiel could not simply teleport there, but had to go all the way to the enemy capital. She took flight and quickly went supersonic, dashing above the landscape of Elkia. She was aware that Jibril was following her, but was only partially aware of the reason. Sora was also on the party. Blindfolded. And he was holding onto Jibril's garment tighter than usual. Ramiel pushed forward, until eventually she reached the spot right above the last recorded position of the plaque. The sea was stormy below her, but that was barely a matter of concern for the Flügel, that plunged head first into the roaring waters.
She dove deeper and deeper into the ever-darker ocean, until the light from the surface became so weak that a human could not see anything at all. Unlike other races, though, Flügel could see very well even in almost absolute obscurity, and so she did not let herself be bothered by it in any way. After a time, she could finally see a brighter spot below her, getting more and more luminous. As she got closer, the spot eventually split into a myriad of individual lights, as it was proper for a city. Ramiel smiled as she realized that she was about to reach her destination.
Soon, she could see that Oceando was a very large, sprawling city. From the major cluster of light that was obviously the city center, long strings of light were departing in all direction, making the capital look like a luminous spider at the center of a shining web. Whether those strings of lights were roads connecting Oceando to other underwater cities, or were simply providing illumination for underwater agriculture, Ramiel did not know. And neither cared about, for the moment.
The city did not appear to have walls, which would have been useless anyway, or lookouts. She was not surprised by this; after thousands of years in isolation, it was just natural that they were not waiting for guests.
As she descended upon the underwater capital, she realized that the buildings were made using stones from the bottom of the sea, and were giving off a faint, pearly glow. Using her acute senses, she could instantly notice that this was due to huge amounts of shells and corals that were embedded in the walls. Some buildings were huge, with a complex structure, but the largest of them all had a reverse-cone shape. The city was obviously a much more three-dimensional environment than a human city, and was more akin to Avant Heim in that regards.
Oceando did have streetlights, but it also had lights on top of all of the buildings, and all access point at any level also had their own set of lanterns to signal their location. The light itself was of course not the result of any combustion, but was provided by jellyfish and glowing seaweed of many colors. Different lights of different colors seemed to have been placed following a well-established geometrical order, making the entire city look like a kaleidoscope.
Ramiel loved architecture, and would usually spend hours marveling at each one of the peculiar features of the city below her, but she was on a mission, and so everything else would have to wait.
Of course, as she lowered herself closer and closer to the bottom of the ocean, she was spotted by an ever-increasing number of passerby. When she finally 'landed' in the middle of a large crowded square, everyone around her was utterly paralyzed, and could just stare in disbelief with their mouth hanging open. Then somebody just screamed "Flügel!" and everyone started to dash away from her, like sardines at the presence of a shark.
Ramiel made a predatory smile, pleased by the reception. But then her expression changed to curiosity as she noticed something strange. While she could sense thousands of sirens and tritons stampeding away in all directions, there was someone that was actually swimming in her direction. The Flügel grinned as she recognized a magical signature that she had become very familiar with in the last weeks. Ramiel turned around, and made a small bow
"Greetings, Duchess of the Coral Reef. I have wanted to meet you for some time now"
Amira swallowed. She could not be sure what the visitor was up to, but it couldn't be anything good for Oceando. She was terrified, but pushed herself to do something
"H-How do you know my name? Oh, it doesn't matter! I challenge you, Flügel!"
Ramiel nodded gracefully "And I shall accept"
"If you lose, you will be my slave!"
"And if I prevail, you will return all of the prisoners that you took from the Empire"
"Fine! We are going to have a singing competition"
"That would be acceptable for me" Ramiel said, although Amira – being the challenger – had no right to choose the game.
Ramiel followed Amira to the entry of a large building, which turned out to be just the cover of a tunnel boring down the bottom of the sea. They dove in and followed the tunnel for a few minutes, until something much unexpected happened. They surfaced.
"Surprised?" the siren grinned
"Indeed" the Flügel had to admit while looking around
They were both in an underground lake, almost perfectly circular, with a radius of around 100 meters. The same lanterns used in the rest of the city were scattered at the bottom of the pool, and their neutral light was filtering from below to lighten the cave. Above their head, the ceiling was beautifully decorated with a myriad of stalactites, while some stalagmite was emerging from the surface of the lake. Roughly at the center of the lake, a large stalagmite of 10 meters diameter formed a small spiky island.
Amira pulled herself on the shallow waters around the central spike, and then sat on the rocky bottom with the upper half of her body above the surface. Ramiel took the cue and emerged from the water herself.
"What an intriguing place… what is it?"
"There are many places like this in Oceando. We come here to measure our ability as singers"
A curious glance "And how would that work?"
In response, Amira began to sing a scale… and the ceiling of the cave changed color.
Ramiel's eyes went wide "So beautiful! What is it?"
Amira grinned with pride "We call it Orichalcos… it's a special type of mineral that reacts to singing by changing color. It is going to be our judge"
The Flügel made a pensive nod "And I guess that it has its own preferences?"
"It definitely does" Amira said with an evil glint in her eyes
"I see. And what are we aiming at, exactly?"
"The Orichalcos is usually black, but as the ability of the singer increases it turns to brown, purple, blue, green, red, orange, yellow, and finally white. Each color then has a number of shades, going from darker to lighter"
Ramiel was impressed "Interesting. Can you make it turn white, Duchess?"
Amira blushed "You really have no idea what you are talking about! That happened only once! Three thousand years ago! Very few sirens nowadays can turn it red!" a prideful smile "And I am among them!"
"Very well then… I am looking forward to hear your performance"
Sirens had a very loose social structure, and they tended to change partner quite often. Unlike other races, where the choice of a partner was guided mostly by look and status, what truly mattered in Oceando was singing ability.
Amira had always been extremely popular. Ever since she had come of age, scores of tritons of all origin and statures have been challenging each other just for the privilege of singing a duet with her.
She was considered a prodigy, and one of the best singers among all of the sirens, despite her relatively young age. She had even made an impression on Empress Laira Lorelai. That impression, later lead to a true friendship, that in turn had a role in Amira being elevated to the rank of Duchess.
And so, when the siren started to sing, she was extremely confident of her chances of success.
She had the voice of a nightingale, and the cave resonated of her trills and high notes.
Her song was a song of joy and delight, of beauty and fleeting pleasure, of sweet desires and promises, of a soothing embrace and burning passion.
The Orichalcos jumped many colors, and immediately turned a very dark green, that quickly brightened as Amira warmed up, and then eventually turned to a dark red when the song came to a close. Amira was panting for the effort, and her face had turned a bright red.
Ramiel nodded and clapped discreetly, a polite smile on her face
"A wonderful performance, Duchess. I am happy that I could hear it!"
Amira made a grin of superiority "Let's see if you will still be happy at the end of the challenge"
Her opponent did not answer. Instead, she spread her wings and soared above the surface of the lake. She seemed to dance a little in the air, until she finally seemed ready to begin.
Then Ramiel started her song, and it looked like even the waves had stopped to listen to it. It was music from the celestial spheres. Ethereal, transcendent, purified from any imperfection by thousands of years of practice.
It was a song of unmeasurable vastness and limitless spaces, of ancient times whose echoes resonated through eternity. It was a song of unimaginable depths and unending travels, a song of never-ending cycles, always repeating, always changing.
She had always loved singing, even before the institution of the Pledges, and had composed many songs to accompany her sisters in battle. After the war, she had placed even more effort in what was before only a hobby, and while most Flügel were quite generalists in their readings, Ramiel had always been rather selective.
Two of the greatest artists of Disboard engaged in a duel to the last note, and the results did not leave any doubt on who was the winner.
The Orichalcos turned a bright green almost immediately, then dark red, then dark orange, but that was not the end. By the time the Flügel stopped, the cave was of a very bright orange, and in some tiny spots it had even turned yellow.
Amira was shocked "Impossible! How did you know what the Orichalcos likes?"
The Flügel smiled enigmatically, while putting a finger to her nose "That's a secret!"
Ramiel's senses were immensely more accurate than those of a human, and she had used Amira's performance to extrapolate the Orichalcos' preferences. Her ears had captured every slight modulation in the siren's voice, and her incredibly acute eyes had coupled it with any infinitesimal variation in the mineral's color. She had then managed to collate all the thousands of variations happening during her opponent's song to derive a number of patterns, and quickly generated a song that would suite those patterns even more. All of this while at the same time evaluating the acoustic of the cave, and deriving the best spot for delivering her own performance.
Ramiel landed gracefully beside Amira and looked down on the overawed siren with piercing blue eyes. "And now, show me where the prisoners are"
The Duchess swallowed "They… they are on an island… I have never been there…"
"But you will fetch a map for me, won't you?"
Amira could just nod
Thirty minutes prior
Finally, the enchanted sphere lightened up. It was the signal from Ramiel that confirmed the position of Oceando. Jibril tucked Sora's arm.
"Master… it's time"
"Thank you, my LAD" his voice was a little unsteady, betraying how tense he was. He took a deep breath before he started to chant "By the power of the Rook and Queen pieces… I summon thee, Task Force Scylla!"
All around them, 400 Flügel appeared, summoned by the power of their Piece. They were blindfolded, and each of them was accompanied by an elf spellcaster attached to their clothes.
Jibril noticed that each of the elves had cast a barrier of magical energy that completely isolated both them and their Flügel companion from the external world.
Almost immediately after they were summoned, each Flügel started to slowly translate towards north-north-west; their respective spellcasters whispering instruction in their ears to make them maintain their formation.
Once they all seemed to be in position, the elf at the center of the formation sent a telepathic signal to all of his brethren, which in turn passed it to their respective Flügel. Few seconds later, the 400 teams plunged in unison into the ocean.
Jibril could see that Sora was nervous, but her instructions said not to talk to him, if not to signal when to summon the task force Scylla. It was probably for the best, because if she had told him what she had seen since they left Elkia, he may have had a heart attack.
Instead, the Flügel started to count. The speed of the descent of the task force had been set in advance, and Ramiel had notified her of the depth of their target, so Jibril knew more or less how much she was supposed to wait. She sighed, as the cold wind was howling all around, and Sora was trembling beside her.
A couple more minutes passed, then something seemed to happen. The roaring, stormy sea below them seemed to suddenly grow quieter for a moment, but then went back to the way it was before. The operation was concluded. Jibril wasted no time
"It's done, Master!"
And immediately teleported away. She had no idea whether or not they had been successful, and neither did Sora. Not knowing whether or not all of their preparations were going to be for naught was seriously starting to get on their nerves. But finally, it was over. One way or the other, they were finally going to know.
Oceando
As they emerged from the Orichalcos' cave, the city seemed utterly deserted. Ramiel smirked with satisfaction, seeing the result of the stampede that her mere appearance had provoked. Apparently, the stampede had been so chaotic that a number of streetlights had been broken, and the seaweeds and jellyfish were now floating all over around them. She was feeling elated, as if the ocean above her was not compressing her anymore, and everything seemed more luminous.
She chuckled to herself. That certainly was just due to all of the luminous jellyfish above her head, but then she noticed something that made her stop in her track. She could have sworn that one of the very big building of the city had just changed shape. Only for a moment. At the top.
She shook her head and frowned. That obviously made no sense. Yet, she was sure that she had seen it. She focused her attention on the building… and suddenly, it happened again. Her mouth dropped open, as she realized what she had actually just seen.
Then Amira screamed, and pointed at something above her head
"The sun! It's the sun!"
Ramiel raised her head, and her suspicion were confirmed. Oceando was not anymore at the bottom of the abyss. It was now in such shallow waters that they could see the sun from the seabed, and the tallest buildings of the city were just below the surface of the water. That was why she could not feel the hydrostatic pressure anymore. And why everything seemed more luminous.
The Flügel grabbed the shocked siren and teleported to the surface. All around them, there were tall, snowy mountains. Ramiel quickly analyzed the Ley lines and estimated that they were somewhere in Rebis, the most remote part of Elven Garde. The entire city had been teleported.
Amira seemed to have cracked, and appeared unable to do anything but tremble and mutter to herself
"Impossible… Impossible… it cannot be… This is the end…"
The Flügel was in awe
And so… this is the power of the Emperor…