The madman stepped down from his personal craft, an honor guard of his wonderful creations preceding him. He squinted at the surrounding quarry, and noticed the telltale tracks of that insolent blue menace. So it hadn't been a false alarm after all; for once, this batch of Robians had worked perfectly. This vindication of his programming skills nonetheless stung him to anger.
The madman's eyes, red perfections on the soft orbs that he'd been born with, picked out a triple set of Mobian-sized tracks in the churned earth beside the ancient white mausoleum, and the partially-disassembled crates. After filing away the positions of the tracks around them, he descended into the mausoleum. He needed no external light to see.
The madman felt cool, dead air on his bald head as he picked his way through the rubble of armor and weapons. Ancient these were indeed, bearing sigils of a royal house long forgotten. A human royal house, a true royal house, not some up-jumped colony of twisted rodents.
The madman studied the sarcophagus, and the ancient corpse within. The corpse, dressed in rotted red silks and fine chainmail, wore a tall, winged helmet of white metal. A dark scepter, whose head resembled a rising sun, was clasped in his right hand.
The madman cursed that blue rat, alongside whoever he'd brought to pillage this monument to ancient humanity: it was plain that the left hand had been recently moved from where the heart would be. Something had been stolen, he knew that much.
The madman's eyes ran over the inscriptions on the foot of the sarcophagus. The extra databanks and processors bolted onto his weak biology ran through terabytes of linguistic data, and it took just long enough to kindle his anger further.
Then…comprehension came.
Here lies Elrohir, son of Eldarion, Lord of Minas Ithil. Buried with The Heart of the Earth.
Success! The madman eagerly scanned the remaining three sides of the sarcophagus. The long edges were murals of–the madman had to admit–beautifully detailed stonework, to the point where he could vividly imagine its subjects in motion.
On the right face, the madman noted, the mural depicted an army of men on horseback, raising their straight swords against six hooded figures on foot. Each figure was armed with a curved sword.
On the left face were two men that stood back-to-back with swords drawn. One man wore the same helmet as the corpse; the other wore an equally tall helm, but with a long horsehair plume instead of wings. The hooded figures had surrounded them, and behind those were figures like men, but taller, long-haired, armed with bows and spears.
And not a single rat in sight, the madman thought with a smile. Just Men, and only Men, battling that most worthy of opponents: other Men.
On the other short end of the sarcophagus, however, was more script. The madman soon realized that he was reading poetry:
Slain was he in the War of the Heart,
By terror, by wraith, and by greed.
In the earth with his beloved he lies,
With the jewel raised up from the sea.
For claiming the Heart as his own,
By the Eldest he was pursued.
Honor this heir of Elendíl's line,
Leave his tomb in its quietude.
The ancient names rolled pleasantly off his tongue as he read them, though he did not recognize them. Who was this ancient king? Who was Elendíl? What jewel could possibly cause such a catastrophe to his heir's kingdom? And what, where, and when was the War of the Heart?
As the madman ordered his creations to repack the crates and stow them in the baggage of his craft, his mind furiously worked upon these questions.
Sally quietly shut the door to the ramshackle machine shop Tails called home, a pot of scavenged instant coffee and a pair of aluminum mugs in her hands. The boy was at his long, wide workbench with the crystal ball–now covered by a thin white sheet–on one end, the sword and piles of books on the other end.
Tails needed no lamp: the gem she'd found sat neatly on a laboratory tripod in the center, bathing the room in warm, slowly-shifting shades of white and pale gold. Even in this mundane space, it was glorious.
When she'd first tried to hand Tails the gem, he'd yelped and dropped it. When Sonic tried to pick it up, the gem grew so hot that it blistered the tips of Sonic's fingers.
When Sally hovered her hand over the gem, it was warm…but not that warm. Just to be safe, however, Sally had ordered that the jewel should only be handled with a pair of tongs.
"Any luck?" she asked.
It has been a week since she'd brought the gem to Knothole, deciding that if anyone could figure out its properties, it was Tails: no book, be it a technical manual, historical document, or a compilation of fairy tales, Tails would devour it with savantic fervour.
"A little," Tails yawned, "By the way, I fixed your ring blades." He rolled his chair over to the corner beside the ball, and opened a thin metal box. A pair of gloves with blue bracelets around the wrists lay inside. Tails traded them for Sally's coffee pot and mugs.
As Tails poured, Sally pulled on the gloves. She flexed each hand outward: a transparent blade of blue energy wizzed from each bracelet, then returned with another flex. She smiled. "Good work, Miles. Do you want any creamer, sweeteners?"
Tails blew the steam off his mug. "No thanks. I need it black today."
"Tonight," Sally corrected, "It's half-past five, and the meeting's at seven." A few years ago, if Tails had looked this tired, she would have put him to bed instead of giving him coffee. She felt a little ache in her heart at that thought. "Can you stay awake long enough for the party?"
Tails took a long sip. "Am I allowed half a mad cap?"
Sally frowned slightly as she took her own cup. "Tails, we've been over this. Charles says they're not safe for anyone under seventeen."
"A whole one, yes," Tails reasoned, "I get that, but…half? Biologically I should be able to–"
"The answer's still no," she replied coolly, before changing the subject. "What've you found out?"
Tails sighed defeat, and rolled his stool over to the naked sword. "Well, the runes on the sword and the writing on your arm are a match. It's the same language."
Sally nodded her approval. "Can you read it?"
"Not yet. It's–" He looked up at Sally, plainly embarrassed. "The letters are some kind of Old Mobian, but the actual language is weird."
She brightened at the mention of Old Mobian; when she was very small, before Robotnik usurped the Acorns, her parents would sing Old Mobian lullabies to her, and read Old Mobian stories to her at night. Her favorite story had been about King Branoc Acorn, who tricked a huge, hungry ogre into stepping inside a magical bag with no bottom.
Unfortunately, all the Old Mobian texts she'd been able to find, had used a modern alphabet: she could speak that ancient tongue, but reading an original text, or runes, was another matter. "Weird, how?" she asked.
"It seems like you're supposed to speak it with your lips and front teeth, and less with your whole mouth," Tails elaborated, "Listen." He paused, trying to assemble what he'd been saying under his breath into more phonetic speech. Then tracing his finger along the runes, he said: "Anar. Naenyay Andurreel Ee nay Narseel ee masseel Elainn-dilo. Lercuvantan ee mollee Mordayo. Eesil."
A cool prickle ran up Sally's arms, and down her back. It sounded like…like…like the dreams.
Every night since she'd encountered the spiders at Lake Degrath, the same dream had visited her: the dark forest, the grey haze, the six cold whispers growing into a great, icy hiss.
Nai kotumo, ar nilmo, kalima Vala,
Thauza ar poika, Moringothanna,
Elda ar Maiya ar Apanóna,
But no seventh voice had called her awake since the first dream. More disturbingly, Sally had begun to see the sources of the whispers in her dreams. They'd begun as tall, pale shapes in the trees, but they grew more distinctive each night. On the sixth night, one of them had stepped out from the trees.
Endóressë Atan sin únóna,
Ilar thanyë, ilar melmë,
Ilar malkazon sammë,
The figure was human–but like no human Sally had ever seen before. He was tall, taller than Dr. Robotnik, with long, raven black hair, broad, muscular shoulders, and a fine, angular face that was both beautiful, mournful and terrible.
Osta ilar harwë, lau Ambar tana,
Só-thauruvá Fëanárollo,
Ar Fëanáró nossello,
When he'd approached her, clad in red armor and maroon cape, Sally then noticed his hands: the right one had been lopped off at the wrist; the left hand was a smoldering, blackened claw.
Iman askalyá ar charyá,
Ar mi kambë mapá,
Herá hirala ar haiya hatá Silmarillë.
Sí vandalmë ilyai…
She couldn't run. The burning hand had wrapped around her throat, lifted her to eye level with that terrible, sad face, and squeezed. Then she'd woken up, her bed soaked with sweat.
Sally hid her trepidation behind a sip of coffee, then a smile. "Good. Good. Did you ever get that far with what my arm says?" she asked.
Tails grinned, assured that he'd done well. He pulled a notebook from the pile beside the sword, and began searching for the page. "I did! Want to hear it? It sounds like some kind of poem, or spell."
"Go ahead."
Tails found his transcription, and began to read. Confidently, he read:
Nai kotumo ar nilmo, kalima Vala,
Thauza ar poika, Moringothonna–
He stopped. "Sal, what's wrong?"
Sally had paled. Quickly, she composed herself: it would not do to get Tails worried about her, not now. "I'm fine."
Her eyes fell on the glass ball at the other end of the long worktable, now covered with a thin white cloth. "I just don't like seeing that thing, even covered." That was true enough: she didn't, especially not with those strange words echoing around in her mind just then. "Did you ever find out more about it?"
Tails blinked, then brightened. "Oh, yes!" he said, as he pulled a thick red volume from the pile behind the naked sword, and began flipping through it. Its thin, dog-eared pages carried a faint sulfuric whiff, and Sally immediately recognized it: The Red Book of Westmarch. The inside cover page read A Rabbit's Tale and The War of the Ring.
He paused, suddenly blushing. "Sal, I think it's a palantir."
"A what?" Sally, after first finishing A Rabbit's Tale with Tails, had gotten into the first couple chapters of The War of the Ring before putting it down: despite the promise of a longer adventure, all the narrator's' talk about party preparations had put Tails to sleep, and bored her.
"Pal-an-teer," Tails annunciated, "They worked like magic telescopes, but this book says you could talk to anyone else who had one, if you knew where they were."
"And you think that's what this ball is?" A palantir. A prop from a fairy tale. It sounded insane when she ran it by herself again. And yet…"Why?"
Tails hesitated. But this wasn't a contemplative hesitation: it was a neat mirror of how she'd just composed herself, after he'd read those strange words aloud to her.
"Get this," Tails said as he flipped deeper into the book, "when Sonic brought Amy back, Vanilla said she was screaming something. 'Come hither, if thou aren't all recreant.' Now look here." He tapped the page.
Sally squinted down at it, like Tails was showing her a snake shedding:
Taking the stone under his arm, Denethor drew forth a knife, and strode towards the bier. But Beregond sprang forward, and set himself before Faramir.
"So! Thou hadst already stolen half my son's love. Now thou stealest the hearts of my knights also, so that they rob me wholly of my son at the last. But in this at least thou shalt not defy my will: to rule my own end. Come hither!" Denethor cried to his servants, "Come, if thou are not all recreant!"
Sally read further. This "Denethor", he…Good heavens. He burned himself alive. She read further, following Tails's finger down the paragraphs. Sally felt her stomach flip as she absorbed the madness upon the pages, and she was soon aware that her hand had gone to her mouth. "Amy saw this?"
That explained a lot. Over the past week, Amy had become increasingly erratic. Nuts, Sonic had reported, more so than usual. No wonder the poor girl had screamed like that.
Tails was just as pale as Sally now. "She heard all of it, at any rate. I don't know what it all means for us, but…" he trailed off, before moving further down the page. "It says here that unless someone had the will to turn the palantir to other uses, he would only see Denethor's burning hands. And Amy turned it."
Nuts, maybe. But one heck of a will, Sally thought. Registering the deepening fright in the boy's voice, she gently asked: "What did she see then?"
Tails recounted the rest of Amy's tale: the Web Wall, and the Nothing that had smiled at her. As he did so, Sally had the distinct feeling that the palantir was watching her, and perhaps listening as well.
Sally let out a long, long exhale when he finished. Okay. Palantir: unsafe, keep it a secret. Gem: unsafe, also keep that a secret. Sword… At least the sword, glowing aside and the strange runes, seemed to be inert. For now. Keep that a secret, too.
She spoke deliberately. "Miles, I want you to lock this palantir, in a safe. If that creature could talk to Amy through it, it probably has one too. It might even be listening to us. Lock it up, cover the safe, and keep it hidden until we find out more."
Tails saluted, her confidence bringing some color back to his face. "I'll call Bunnie. What's your verdict on the gem and the sword?*
Sally went over to the gem and hovered her hand over it. Once again, it was warm, but not burning hot. "Have you found out anything about this?"
Tails shook his head. "Nothing yet."
Sally turned her attention back to the gem. Then curiosity overcame her caution.
She took off her right glove, and tapped the gem with the back of her hand, as she might a doorknob in a housefire; again, warm, but not hot.
Then she held the back of her hand to it, for five seconds. No reaction.
"Keep the sword here," she stated. "But I think you would be safer if I kept this with me." She drew a dark blue handkerchief from her vest and wrapped the gem up.
Tails opened his mouth to object, then closed it. Then he asked: "I would be safer?"
Sally nodded, more curtly than she'd intended as she slipped the gem into an inside pocket of her vest. "Yes."
Then she came back to him, bending to kiss him on each cheek, then on the nose. She smiled. "Best get dressed for the party, Miles. I'm going to check on Amy." With that, she left him.
Antoine, that sweet Mercian coyote, with his dorky center-parted hair, kissed Bunnie's mechanical hand first, then her warmer hand of flesh. "It has been too long, mon coeur," he breathed into her knuckles.
"Way too damn long," Bunnie agreed, "How's your possé been treatin' ya?" For the last year, Sally had put Antoine in charge of a Freedom Fighter cell in the far north, with the mission to disrupt Robotnik's newest mining operations in the Caobenna Mountains.
"Oh, zey're all fine," he said as he sat her down by the log in front of Bunnie's house, a low, round cabin with a thatch roof. Lanterns gleamed warmly on low branches around the clearing that served for a yard. "How is your voice being?"
Bunnie scratched the back of her head. "Oh, gettin' better."
"Come, come, mon peanut-brittle, surely not just getting better?"
She relented. "Been workin' on it."
Antoine's smile turned eager. "May I hear?"
Bunnie quickly glanced around. No one else was around. Twice, she clicked her back teeth together to ready herself. Then cautiously, she sang:
Oh the summer-time is comin',
And the trees are sweet-ly bloomin',
And the wild moun-tain thyme,
Rolls around the bloo-min' heather,
Will ya go, lassie, go?
She smiled shyly. "Ya like it? Not a scratch in it."
Antoine kissed her, long, and deep. "C'est bon, cherí," he said, "More zan bon. C'est cristalline, angélique."
Bunnie flushed. "Aw, stop it, it ain't that good."
Antoine reluctantly drew away from her to ask: "All else been going well for you too, non? I am hearing from Sonic you took care of ze spiders?"
"Well, a few of 'em," Bunnie said, "Didn't get enough of 'em for mah liking." She picked up one of the small bowls she'd set by the log, took a pinch of thick, dark paste from it, and began marking his face.
Everyone in Knothole, in one way or another, marked their faces during the Feast of the Green Decree: paint, scavenged hair dye, and those Mobians with thin or no fur sometimes opted for tattoos. But in the spirit of the holiday, Bunnie preferred the medium Sally had learned from Old Mobian histories, and then relayed to her: an astringent, dark blue dye made from soot and woad flowers.
The stuff always left those who used it with blue hands for weeks, but the dye came out more easily than the lab-synthesized stuff. Plus it made a good– albeit painful–wound disinfectant in the field.
Antoine sat perfectly still as she worked, but kept talking. "Are you sinking Robotnik set zem loose?"
"Non," Bunnie replied, "Ah dunno what they are, but they sure ain't mechanical, and bio-weapons just ain't his style. Ah think Tails has a hunch, though."
"Bright boy. Has he been confessing to Amelia yet?"
She sighed. "Poor little guy. Three days ago, he got himself all worked up to go stargazin' with her, flowers, picnic basket, the works. He knocks on her door five times, and she just asks him for a damn flashlight, wouldn't even leave the house. Kid hasn't left the shop since. There, now ya look fierce." She admired her work for a moment, before offering him the bowl of woad.
Antoine took it. "Fuelish mademoiselle. Doesn't she know he likes her?"
Bunnie shrugged. "Hard to tell with that one." Then she closed her eyes, expecting Antoine to start on her face, as she had done for him. "Ah think so."
A pause. Slowly, Antoine said, his voice suddenly shy and husky: "And you know that I do. Like you, I mean?"
She smiled again, her eyes still shut. She half-expected him to kiss her again. "More than like, Ah hope?"
Antoine inhaled, and left her side.
"What's wrong, Ant?" Curiously, she opened her eyes, and saw him on one knee before her.
Woad markings were originally meant to make its wearer look scary, regardless of expression. Despite this, Antoine looked absolutely terrified. And in his hands, he held…No. No. YES! She beamed. A RING! A simple, silver band, set with a pale, polished turquoise.
"Bunnie," he said, "Will you be marrying me?"