Author's Note; RAPT ATTENTION, DEAR READER! Explanations about Pathos, some Foaly moments and answers to many of your questions are going to come out in this chapter. I strongly advise against skipping paragraphs. As for my month long absence, exams happened (which accounts for about four weeks) and I lost my notes for this story- which accounts for the additional delay. I just put up a Rogue One fic (K2 being an inopportune but lovable jerk, rebelCaptain FTW, appreciating Bodhi, the aftermath of Scarif, that kinda thing) recently, but I'm not losing focus on KTE. I'm just going to find a way to multitask.

And once again, I cannot thank you enough for sticking with the story so far. The climax is drawing closer and I won't let you down!

AF: Key to Ethos | Part Two

—•:;*"~€/°&^]—

CHAPTER TWELVE: UNTO THE BREACH WE GO

The kingdom had never been a bright place for Vost Medalen. And he liked it that way. He liked the storm clouds that often congregated over the tall pikes of the buildings, and he liked the stagnant colour of the pavement bricks. He liked that the trees contoured in wicked angles and that the sun glistened like an evil eye over the mountains at dawn. Pathos had never seen a summer day in all of two centuries and the air was heavy with cold moisture, which was the way the people liked it.

The people, though...that was the part Vost wasn't overly fond of.

The people of his father's kingdom dressed in black apparel some days, white on others, gray if feeling creative and thus never contrasted the kingdom's own theme of dark and dull and monochrome. The elite walked in cloaks woven of black fathers. The hide of a gray wolf, sometimes, face contorted like the animal's dying breath had been a shuddering one, and this was the epitome of power and strength in the shadowy world of Pathos. Dead birds, dead wolves, the ghastly colours of death in general. And their expectations, gosh. Their expectations for their prince! To make a conquest, a great one. To conquer another world that they could touch with death and turn gray, white and black.

Monsters walked among them. Monsters in the King's reserve. The Freaks. The very icon of certain death.

On that particular day the prince of this sordid place had just exited another boorish conference with the so-called elites when he was asked to report to his father's chambers at once.

Vost did not like his father.

But he'd gone nonetheless, only to find his spoilt girl cousin, Esthre, lounging delightedly on his father's throne.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he'd thundered.

Esthre, looking down at him with a mocking gleam in both stark eyes, had sweetly replied, "I came with a proposition, dear cousin."

"Proposition?" Vost had repeated in an obvious suspecting way.

And that day their conquest had begun, for the glory of all Pathos. A shady conquest whose details were for the most part buried, but one order had been given to Vost only by the king: follow her.

Vost suspected that his father was making an opportunity to pretend he had the daughter he'd always wanted. Esthre had always been his favourite.

The window to their conquest was such: the ruler of Logos, a grand and prosperous civilization, was having trouble with a bunch of citizens rebelling against the (honestly oppressive) government. Esthre had arrived on scene in a procession of her proud colours; black, white and gray, and negotiated a contract with Queen Koboi.

Queen Koboi was to lend them her armies, and they were to lend her their monsters.

Together they would conquer all the world around Logos, the settlements and wasted land that held out stubbornly against the glorious civilization, and when the Pathos descended to claim their new world Koboi's people would be honoured. Those who resisted would become slaves. It was to be that simple.

But then the rebels seized the keys of Logos and had them scattered in uncharted locations.

There would be no conquest if the capital city of Logos couldn't be used as a center. There was no access to the armies who were trapped within that city. Koboi had very few people outside the gates.

The motive now was to get into the city and get the armies. Then all would proceed as previously planned.

Things got a tad more complicated, though, for Vost. Esthre was playing the role of his father's dutiful daughter with dedication. She was keeping the old man notified of everything and claiming credit even for the good work she had not accomplished on her own. This was something Vost could live with- it was the spoilt princess's nature, after all, and she'd been that way since birth. But there were other things concerning which his cousin just became a rat. She held this ratting over him like blackmail; defy me once, Medalen, and your dad and the whole of Pathos is going to know about your sinful fantasies.

He couldn't be blamed, not really. He disliked the people of Pathos. He disliked even more the elite classes. So when he had come into contact with people of the worlds outside of Pathos, it had just been...

Yes, he'd grown to like them. Yes, he'd started to fall in love, with the people, with their ways, with their cultures that weren't gray or dark or cloudy. And standing out against this pleasant background, representing everything he prefered of this world over Pathos, was Kyre Legend.

Did he want this beautiful world turning into a ghastly realm for ghastly people? No. But this was his first conquest, and he did not desire in the least bit to fail. The beauty and colours would have to be sacrificed for the greater glory of his cause, and to prove to his father that what the old man needed was a capable son, not a perfectly spoilt princess daughter.

Today Vost had the most dangerous mission of all. To return to Pathos and have a word with the elite class, that is...

Foaly refused to believe it. Here was a disastrous, potentially cataclysmic emergency signal, and Sool was looking giddy about it. The usurper was actually doing a sort of happy dance around the podium now.

"Just on time," the acting Commander clapped his hands in delight. "A chance to show the LEP the leadership it really needs."

"I cannot believe your guts," gaped Foaly, but the officers in the room were already on their hasty way out with only Sool's dubious word to guide them. Knowing there was no point in his hanging around anymore, Foaly also turned on a hoof and stomped out with the crowd. He paused momentarily at the doorway, wondering if there was a chance he could convince Sool that the drug was needed, but one look at the prudent gnome's face told him that there was no point trying.

The pompous idiot was sending all that remained of the LEP's forces into their eventual eternal naps, condemning them all to a comma in the real world and all forms of unimaginable agony in that nightmare world with the green skies and acid pits. Even after Vinyayá's fatal assumption that the reinforcement of the ships would protect them from the Freaks' noises, had nobody learned a lesson? The officers would report to him, then, surely? Asking for the drug that would prevent their fates?

Sirens still blaring, Foaly cut his way through the corridors with a speed he had never before possessed. He was panting by the time he rounded the corner to his Ops booth where, sure enough, a crowd of officers were gathered in full gear, ready for battle in every angle except one.

"The resistance pill, Foaly," Corporal Raynes explained as soon as the centaur was back to breathing normally. That a mere Corporal was in charge of this group itself was extremely worrying- it only meant that no seniors were left. "We saw what happened with the Wing Commander's fleet. It would be suicide to venture out there without it."

"Where?" Foaly wheezed. "Which part of Haven are they attacking?"

Raynes had a look of well concealed dread in his eyes that did not carry with his voice. "The Shallows, sir. Near the chute at Tara."

Time seemed to freeze for him.

The Shallows...Tara...the closest region of their underground civilization to the surface, to the human world. Those areas were normally high-security zones even during the tourist seasons, and its residents were of the highest class among the People. But an attack targeted specifically at this zone so close to the surface world...

If anything left that zone, it would emerge on the Mud Men's side of the planet. And it would give away everything that the People had spent centuries working to conceal.

"Go," Foaly said, almost quietly. "Get going. Barricade every path that leads to the surface. I'll have the pills sent. Soon."

Raynes and the others murmured their agreement, that right now no time could be wasted even if it meant confirming their safety, and Foaly soon found the entrance to his Ops booth deserted. Brave fairies, they were. It gave him some faith that the LEP had not entirely lost its way, no matter who was in charge now.

All those lives. Too great a sacrifice. He needed to get the resistance drug to them before the Freaks triumphed entirely.

Ark Sool stopped on his way past the booth. Foaly glared daggers at him.

What have you done?

Sool's grin answered the rhetorical question. Banned those accursed drugs you had ordered from that unregistered source. The LEP will not be siding with criminals to win their battles. My leadership is all they need.

And then he was gone too, but Foaly half wished it would be the last time he saw the hateful gnome.

He turned to his screens and rubbed circles in his temples.

"I know you didn't have time to destroy the pills we got down," he said out loud. "So where did you tuck them away, Commander Sool?"

The feed from his cameras told him nothing, and time was ticking on.

"The Council building?"

No. No big red crates.

"The old wing?"

Nada.

"Maybe you had it sent to someone who'd rid of them for you." Foaly buried his face in his hands and stared up at his screens despairingly. What was he to do now? Place another order? It would take another day. Another fatal delay. And he certainly couldn't synthesise the drug himself in quantities that would befit the number of officers in so little time.

Calling on the drug for protection was not an option anymore.

But Vinyayá tried. The Freaks' noise can get through anyth-

"Holy Frond," breathed the centaur as it hit him.

Then: "I really deserve more pay for my brilliant ideas."

Foaly drove into his posh suburban homefront with the velocity of a drunken maniac, didn't even switch off the engines or shut the door when he scrambled out of his new van and dashed for the door of his house.

He rapped at it several times before remembering the bell and slamming that button instead. And he continued to nearly mutilate the lacquered sim-timber up until it was pulled open with a violent jolt and a gun was pointed in his face.

He blinked down the end of the barrel.

Caballine slowly lowered the weapon, a look of confusion sweeping over her fine features.

"Don't assault my door next time," she said. "Only assassins assault doors, and I quite reasonably thought you were one."

"I need your help," breathed Foaly, letting himself enter the house hastily. "The Freaks are at the Shallows and-"

"Is that your new van? Dear Frond, it looks like something a troll spat out."

Foaly grabbed his wife by the shoulders. "Caballine, love, I really need your help."

The female centaur shook herself out of it and paid attention. "What happened?"

Foaly was already steering her in the direction of the basement where he kept his pet projects, the front door still open. "Freaks. Shallows. Sool confiscated the pills, so our only defense is-"

"We could build a super-vacuum," Caballine suggested, flipping her long hair over a shoulder because she couldn't free her hands to do so.

Foaly halted in is tracks. "It took me a long while to realize that. Did you...did you figure that out just now? In an instant?"

His wife looked at him strangely. "It was a little obvious from the start, but I didn't mention it because the pills were a better option."

"I love you," said Foaly, for a split second looking utterly lovestruck, before shaking himself and trotting at double-speed down the basement steps, his startled wife in tow.

The underground city's closest region to the surface, the shallowest, as it were, was a high security zone for a few infinitely simple reasons. The first being the probability of rogue fairies, as access to the surface was a mere service-shuttle ride away. There were sometimes whole bunches of them donned in cam foil trying to sneak into one of the shuttles that only flew to service the chute, to seal and shield it over and over again so that not the slightest passage connecting Haven to the surface was accessible from below or above ground. The second reason for this security was the probability of Mud Men, or even a single Mud Man, accidentally stumbling across a pasage that was somehow not sealed adequately and chancing upon the fairy city. Their orders in this instance were simple- stun, wipe and relocate. Preferably to some remote corner of the globe that would not help said Mud Man even if he did recover his memories. The third reason was that the Shallows held a community of Haven's most highly prolific, meaning Councilmen, hugely successful businessmen and members of elite bloodlines from the days of Frond. These individuals, especially the bloodline ones, constantly fretted about their lives being under threat from vengeful distant cousins, and so the LEP's batch in the Shallows were bound by area-rule to listen to these frettings.

And of course the tourists, the final reason. During a full moon the singular shuttleport here would be packed and brimming with civilian fairies wanting to go moon-mad and perform the ritual, so the officers had to keep wary eyes out for opportunists going rogue or signs of Mud Men while the tourists had their picnics and flounced by the scared oaks.

Understandably, the Shallows operation force were a no-nonsense bunch. But that was in the face of problems they were prepared to deal with.

The evacuations were happening fast, but not fast enough. Residents scuttled out of their homes urged on by LEP officers, but the things still advanced at snail pace through the streets towards them. They were making no noise yet, thank Frond. They were giving everybody enough time to escape.

"More Freaks up North!" yelled a distant voice over the sound of faint gunfire, coming from the direction of the shuttleport, two rockfaces high.

More gunfire. Blasts. Explosions went off on the streets where the Freaks advanced, momentarily halting their progress, but this did not seem to faze them in the slightest.

Residents piled up inside shuttles brought there for evacaution. Other shuttles, comandeered by LEP corporals, took to panicked scans of the roof of the Shallows, the thin crust of Earth separating Haven from the surface. There were no Freaks at the roof yet. But there were large numbers at the shuttleport, appeared from nowhere, starting to screech their noises and knock officers off into agonized sleep. The Freaks leapt on long, shrivelled limbs to the roof, clinging on upside-down, crawling on all fours while their necks twisted the whole three-sixty degrees in seach of a passage to the surface. Some were huge. Massive. If not for the dotted black colour of their torsos and limbs they could have blended in with the rocks they bounded off, camouflage, yet another advantage they held over the near-defeated LEP.

"This chaos is unnecessary," Sool sneered from his place behind a barricade set up at the gates, which the Freaks had headed well away from. He barked into the central communications mic on his lapel. "Get everything back under control, Corporals! You are in charge of this operation and you aren't doing very good at it!"

Another line went dead for his ears to hear. Another victim. "Bless your soul," muttered Sool, and went back to his commanding.

Everything was a mess. Fires. Miniature explosions. Evacuating shuttles. Freaks on the cavern roof like spider-monkeys, scratching at the rock hoping to discover tunnels leading to the surface, all the while screeching animalistic noises that pushed back any impressions that these beings were sentient.

Sool was a good distance away from most of the action, which was largely accumulated in the immediate vicinity of the shuttleport. Freaks leapt on the hangars and swung onto the building's roof tiles. Some of the animals crept into the port itself. Shadows moved with rapidity behind the glass walls and shots rattled at the windows continually.

Commander Ark Sool valued his life above rushing into the port and attempting to save the officers who fought the enemy in there. But it was his duty to plan a way out of this mess and guide those officers- Sool started to wonder what could be done. How the so-called Freaks could effectively be driven back...

He got to think no further on that line because one of the larger monsters dropped from the cavern ceiling and landed on all fours right before him.

It met his gaze with depthless sockets and let loose the most soul-wrenching of shrieks from between wide open canine jaws.

"D'ARVIT!" Sool's neutrino was out in an instant and firing. The Freak broke from its noise to receive the blasts to its jaw and snapped back to look at the acting Commander, who had suddenly stopped firing.

"D'Arvit," breathed Sool, inching a step back, clutching still onto his pretty much pointless blaster.

The Freak snarled, peering at him with a bend of its flexible neck. Its front canines dripped a congealing substance of the most vomit-inducing stench.

Commander Ark Sool was not a fearful individual. If anything he was the smartest, and most level-headed, rational, responsible member of the group of clots he was in charge of.

Staring certain death in the face can change that about a person.

And his limbs were frozen. In a state of painful paralysis except for sweat-sodden fingertips that shook like a bicycle's jittery cable.

The thickly salivating canines were inches away from his face. He was inches away from certain death or worse.

He understood in that moment more than ever before exactly why these creatures were called Freaks. Abnormally long arms and legs, disproportionate, that bent at joints in several places to look spider-like. Humanoid when they stood. Gnarled torsos. Featureless faces that bore flesh wounds rimmed in black blood, like the injuries they acquired were merely that- acquired, never suffered. Dark pits as eyes. He would bear this image in mind for the rest of his days, he knew, if his days on this planet didn't end right now.

A stray blast from an unknown officer's neutrino struck the Freak's jaw, displacing it, sending the monster's neck turning away from the rest of its body.

Sool was quick to scramble to his feet and attempt another shot with his own gun. A single burst of short-circuiting fire managed to graze the creature's forehead. Other than that it did nothing, and the gun was smoking.

Spraining his ankle in the process he ran. The Freak snarled, a bloodcurdling chill threatened to freeze his legs, and it pursued on four limbs.

He was making a stumbling run for the neighbourhood's defining boundary, the one that set the Shallows apart from the rest of the city. He was seeing disoriented shapes, fairies, scrambling about at work. Not with guns. Something else was happening.

A single jaw- an upper jaw- latched onto and pinned his left leg to the ground.

Sool grunted as his head hit the mud and his world threatened to go blank. The Freak removed its jaw and reached for him with its front limbs. It suspended its torso above him. It brought its canines closer to his ear.

A bout of blaster fire first unlatched the monster and then sent it skidding across the road, shrieking, limbs everywhere.

"What's going on?" Sool heard himself say. "What the hell is happening?"

A hand that looked a little familiar grabbed his elbow and forced him to his feet. "Get our officers out of the buildings, Sool," said Foaly's voice, serious, threatening. "Tell them to assemble outside the neighbourhood. I'll get this situation under control."

The acting Commander couldn't find the energy to argue or even to doubt the centaur. He just snatched the comlink that was being offered to him and barked Foaly's orders into it.

"All remaining units, this is your Commander. Assemble at the boundary. Do not stay back."

"Thank you," Foaly snatched back his comlink. "Now get the hell out of my way. It's about time you started listening to the people Root listened to."

Foaly noted with relief that every remaining officer was obeying the order and assembling outside the township's gates. Residents left conscious were following them. Soon enough Freaks and dead-to-the-world bodies were the only things remaining within the boundary, but it wouldn't be that way forever.

Himself stepping outside the boundary lined with shielding devices his technical team had placed, he hurried over to the control board and flicked the switches that needed to be flicked. Shield up, first. There were Freaks that rushed at the transparent walls but hit it and never made a step beyond them. They clawed and hissed against it. The forcefield held strong.

"Place the vacuum," Foaly called to his staff. Nobody responded immediately. The vacuum had to be placed on top of the forcefield and it had to penetrate. The forcefield couldn't be scaled. How was that going to be accomplished?

A crane from somewhere in the vicinity rolled past the throngs of security and technical personnel, earning baffled looks from everyone. Foaly himself looked impressed. The crane held his Inhaler several feet off the ground and was making for the forcefield.

The shield in no way was meant to contain the Freaks' cries, though, and the piercing screams started at once. The animalistic screeches that induced fear like an intoxicant. Officers were starting to back away. A resident collapsed onto the ground, taken by Ethos. Sool looked his way and threatened to explode.

The construction work machine placed and fixed the Inhaler, a huge cylindrical body of mechanical parts and a hollow middle, at the top of the forcefield. Foaly only ignored Sool's glare and the chaos unfurling inside his forcefield as well as around it. Biting his lip, he took the risk. The forcefield started to shrink back into its generators.

As soon as the inhaler was immersed halfway he hit the activation button again and the shield was up before any one of the spider-like creatures could make a spring for the outside world. He pushed aside the crushing pain of the Freaks' cries as he remotely turned up the rate of the Inhaler. It would suck out all air inside the forcefield. His super vacuum would render them all deaf to the chilling chorus of Ethos and possibly cause the monsters to suffocate. The latter was a remote chance. He had doubts that those creatures breathed the same way as everyone else.

The noise stopped ringing in their ears. The Freaks were still clawing, trying to make their way out, but nobody was hearing a thing. The silence was eerie but not unwelcome knowing what it protected them from.

Foaly looked up to congratulate the crane driver and maybe even offer the guy a pay rise, but said driver grinned his way and the words died down in his throat.

You're welcome, Caballine mouthed cheekily, relaxing the best she could against the seat not meant for centaurs.

The ship touched down at a rather welcoming harbour considering all the desolate scenery they had been through for most part of the journey. The was a comparatively lively environment where vendors were working their strategies on exhausted travelers and music was emanating from souvenir shops and bars. Mulch's proposition that they stop over for a snack was thus accepted without much debate.

Caleb gulped down the last of his goat milk and laid flat the details of their final and most important search.

"We don't know where it is."

Everyone at the table, Zone and Mulch excluded, looked at him either disbelievingly or very unamusedly. Zone was hardly known for complicated facial expressions, and Mulch was engrossed in his greasy meal of chicken thighs.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Holly attempted to clarify. "We travelled this far by ship not knowing where we were supposed to go?"

"We are supposed to be here," Caleb corrected. "The third key is somewhere in this area. The problem is that we have absolutely no clue where, and this area is at least twice the size of Harpsichord Island. Also it's infested with Opal's people. They've occupied most of it and most of the cities here consider her their leader. It isn't going to be easy."

"If you can call the last time easy," snorted Root, chucking down a glass of bitter stuff he wasn't even sure wasn't poison. "Does Koboi know it's here?"

"She probably didn't until we got here, if she's tracking us. If she'd known earlier, considering how strong her influence is in these parts, she would've acquired this key a long time ago and already got into Logos."

"So she's tracking us now," noted Holly sarcastically. "Great. Best piece of news I've heard so far."

"Are you going to eat that?" Artemis asked from across the table.

Holly only glared up at his total lack of panic. "No, Mud Whelp. It's meat."

"A surprisingly fine cut," observed the human. "May I?"

The elf chose keep her glare intense as the calm and rational genius proceeded to switch her plate with his that comprised of more carrot sticks and a minute slice of steak. Her rumbling stomach appreciated the maneuver, but her temper wasn't coping so well.

"I grant you that we are indeed at a disadvantage here," began Artemis patiently after a civilized mouthful. "There is a high chance that Koboi knows where we are. But her people in these regions will have specific orders that we are to be followed, not captured."

"That's reassuring," commented Vinyayà with a raised eyebrow.

"She does not know that our knowledge of the third key's whereabouts is as limited as it is. Any attacks will be held off until we have acquired the key."

"Like I said. Reassuring."

"How can you be so sure of this, Fowl?" Root impatiently drummed the table. "Koboi does not enjoy these victories we have at her expense. She could very well issue an order that the first key is taken from us, we're either locked up or killed, and then she'll set her own people to find the third key."

"Too much of risk involved," disagreed Artemis. "She cannot afford to tell all her people to look for it because her enemies in these parts will invariably get wind of it and start their own searches."

"Speaking of which, we might have a few friends around here," Caleb brightened up suddenly. "My mother might have allies in these parts."

"Can you think of any?" asked Holly, daring to sound hopeful.

"Not really."

The elf held back an infuriated growl and went back to picking at her food.

"I think we're being watched," said Mulch from the unoccupied corner of his mouth. "See those burly guys over there?"

Frowning, everyone except Zone glanced the way the dwarf had pointed.

"Don't give us away," the bodyguard warned.

Holly couldn't tear her gaze, though. There was something about their apparent spies. Something...

"Ethos," she breathed.

She had seen the same thing before. The same dark circles under the eyes, the eternally sullen look, the apparel of black and grey. Each glimpse of Ethos had presented a few dressed like that as background. It had never been a cause for concern before, maybe, because they had stood a long distance away, unobtrusive, uninvolved, but now...

"Shit," swore Caleb, catching on. He had been there before, too. And he had seen those figures in the real world. In Logos, when the city was being overrun by Freaks. These figures had stood watching, assessing the damage, appreciating it. They were from Pathos, the same place the Freaks had come from. "We need to go."

Mulch looked at them quizzically. "What's going on?"

"Zone," started Caleb, tugging at his guardian's sleeve. "We need to go. Now."

The muscular figures in grey stood at about the same time Zone did.

"All of you, leave," the bodyguard instructed.

Caleb scowled. "No, man, I'm not leaving you behin–"

"There will be nothing left of you for me to protect if you don't get away right now," Zone pointed out, already leaving them. He was headed straight for the shady group, several crowded tables across.

The boy stared at his retreating back, dumbfounded. Something had to be done. He couldn't let Zone face those guys alone. Those guys were from Pathos. If the Freaks from Pathos could do such a lot of damage, the people could be no exception.

"He'll be back," Holly assured him, before grabbing him by the wrist and leading him in the opposite direction, towards the door. Caleb protested weak words that even his ears didn't quite manage to catch. Mulch followed behind them, then Artemis. Root and Vinyayà stuck around for longer, but they seemed to realize with their fresh injuries there wasn't much they could do to help. The entire group was soon taking fast steps down the dock, away from the restaurant, the entire group except for Zone. Caleb kept his neck turned and his eyes fixed on the squat building. He couldn't see the insides of it. He had no idea what was happening.

"Why can't he come with us? Why does he have to stay back?"

"He's buying us time, Caleb," Holly said, quickening her pace. "He'll be fine." They turned around a bend on the cobblestone streets and the boy couldn't see the squat building any longer. An unshakable sense of dread had settled on his shoulders. He couldn't convince himself of Holly's words.

The world grew eerily quiet around them as they headed further and further away. Daytime was warping into noon. Out of the commercial area now. Numerous battered paths leading to smaller settlements. Evening was approaching.

"Stop, please," Caleb said at last, a feeble protest. He slumped to a cross-legged sit the moment Holly let go of him. He buried his head in his hands and wondered how things had possibly gone so wrong over such a short frame of time.

"I'm going back," said Root suddenly, suppressing a wince that came from his battered ribcage. "Short, stay with the boy. There could be any number of threats still out there."

"You're in no state to fight, Commander," said Holly, but plainly, because it was a statement of fact. "And besides, it's...very late."

"He would have been able to hold out," disagreed Vinyayà. "I left him my blaster. Best case, he's on his way looking for us. Worst case, he's hiding. Either way he could do with some help."

"Then I'll go," volunteered Holly. "I'm in a better condition to fight."

The Wing Commander spent a couple of seconds assessing said condition and, noting that it was indeed better than Root's, nodded. "I'm taking Short with me, Commander."

Root scowled. "That wasn't what I initially–"

His protests were cut short by the frantic sound of ringing that erupted from somewhere inside Caleb's rucksack. The boy was immediately fishing for it and hit the call button as soon as he could.

"Zone, is that you?"

There was a reply, and Caleb nodded, tight-lipped. He put the ancient device on speaker for the rest of them to hear.

"Isn't Zone with you?" asked the concerned voice of Kyre.

"No, mom, he's..." The boy sighed. "We're in the place for the third key. There are people from Pathos following us. Zone stayed back to hold them off, but he hasn't returned yet."

"People from...Pathos?" Kyre gasped. "Wait, they've...deployed people from Pathos? That's not possible. It can't be."

Caleb scowled. "Well, it's happening, mom."

"No. The whole reason they want to get back into Logos is because that's where the gateway is. Between our world and Pathos. They can't have just...opened up another gateway. They wouldn't need Logos then. They wouldn't need the keys."

"If you don't mind me asking," interjected Artemis patiently. "What have you learnt from your undercover operation in their ranks, that you still haven't told us about?"

Kyre seemed to hold her breath. "Caleb, you told–"

"I didn't. He figured it out for himself. Answer the question."

The woman sighed, and the noise rattled through the speakers as a rush of static. "Very well. They want to get back into Logos to bring forth an army from Pathos via the gateway. They're fixated on Logos because it's the only gateway. Opal is working for Esthre and Vost Medalen, members of a ruling class from Pathos whose objective is to conquer Logos and beyond it, meaning every one of our settlements as well. Once that is achieved they will move to Artemis's world and start from Haven City. This isn't just about Logos like we initially thought. And now it's confirmed that they will attempt Haven afterwards. The army from Pathos is ready. The only things they need now are the keys to Logos so that they can locate Logos and bring that army."

"Isn't there a chance that this Pathos that's tracking us now came from Logos?" asked Holly.

"There were members of Pathos in Logos before, when Opal brought the Freaks for the first time, but without the keys inside the city nobody can actually leave it. The Freaks you saw in the lava caves were put there a long time ago when the keys were inside the city. But they're all the backup Opal kept. If you're seeing Pathos right now, there has to be another gateway."

"But Opal wouldn't care about Logos if there was," said Artemis.

"Exactly. I don't think Opal, Vost or Esthre know about this other gateway."

Caleb frowned. "Wait. Does that mean those Pathos people back there aren't our enemies?"

"If they also intend on conquering the world, they are. But in this instance they're more Vost and Esthre's enemies. Trying to conquer this world first. The worry is that they don't need the keys or Logos if they already have a gateway."

"Bloody hell," swore Root. "We have virtually no way of stopping them from bringing an army?"

"Unless we set both our enemies up against each other, no," replied Kyre. "And in that regard I will do all I can."

"But we still need to find the third key?" asked Caleb.

"All this talk about a new enemy is just speculation, Caleb," said Kyre. "But just in case there isn't a new gateway that Opal's army can also use, we need to secure the keys." She paused for a moment and when she spoke again, her tone was a lot less businesslike. "I'm sorry, Caleb. I should never have put you on this mission to begin with. It didn't occur to me that I was failing as a mother, no matter how hard I worked for the rebellion and to get our old home back. I should have kept you safe instead of pushing you right into the heart of the battle. I regret it now. I'll never make the same mistake again."

Caleb sighed. "Mom, I'm handling it well."

"This is the last assignment I'm setting you on, Caleb," stated Kyre firmly. "You think Zone doesn't send me reports of the situation? I heard about Harpsichord Isalnd. You were...heaven, I don't know what to call it. Kidnapped? Nearly sold off? Never again. I nearly got a bloody heart attack, and it's all my fault it happened. I set you on that mission. I would have been responsible for it if they had...organ trade, Caleb!"

"Mom, I–" The boy stopped, knowing there was no arguing his way out of this one. "Okay. Just this mission."

There was a momentary pause on the other end, and then Kyre continued tiredly, "There is a friend of mine, an ally, who rules a moderately large settlement called Silas City. They left Logos just like we did, so most of them don't patronize Opal. My friend has had her own searches for the third key over the past few months. She'll have some extent of knowledge as to the key's possible whereabouts. I've notified her of your arrival."

"Will do," said Caleb dryly.

"Wait for Zone," Kyre said sternly, but with a kind of motherly gentleness he had not heard since they left their old home of Logos. "He'll be back."

The boy managed a half-smile. "Thanks, mom."

A/N: I really owe every one of you a huge apology for this delay, but I promise you I won't take this long with the next chapter. Did you like my little semi-cliffhanger? ;)