Chapter 598: Three Questions

The grumble rolled through the trees a second time, deeper now that Arion was listening for it.

Not sound exactly.

It moved through the ground, through the old roots beneath his boots, and through the muted structure of the link until he could no longer tell where physical vibration ended and pheromonal communication began.

Marius lowered his enormous body closer to the earth.

Matthias did not move at all.

Arion stood at the edge of the ravine with one hand raised to keep the special-troops officers behind him, his attention fixed on the dark forest ahead.

The presence was there.

Close enough that the pressure of it made the hair rise along his forearms.

Hendrik spoke through the earpiece.

"Arion."

"Stay on the line."

"I was planning to."

Victor cut in immediately afterward.

"Do not approach anything you cannot see."

Arion ignored that for the moment.

He reached carefully through the link.

Can you understand me?

For several seconds, nothing changed.

The wind moved through the high canopy, bending branches too far above them to see clearly.

Marius shifted one claw against the soil.

Matthias’s breathing had become shallow.

A response entered the connection.

Obviously.

Arion blinked.

Matthias looked toward him.

"What?"

"He answered."

Marius’s black eyes widened.

Hendrik swore quietly over the line.

Arion kept his focus north.

The voice, if it could be called that, carried no age in the human sense. It felt heavy, slow, and irritated by the effort of remaining aware.

Arion tried again.

What are you?

The presence stirred.

The ground vibrated faintly.

Three questions.

Arion frowned.

Why three?

A pause followed. Long enough that Arion realized something unpleasant.

Matthias noticed first.

"You just used one."

Arion looked at him.

Marius made a deep sound that was suspiciously close to laughter.

From the forest came another answer.

Because three is interesting and short enough that I can return to sleep.

Arion stared into the trees.

Hendrik’s voice came through with immediate irritation.

"You wasted a question asking why there are three questions."

"I noticed."

Victor sounded almost amused.

"That may be the first scientifically useful thing to happen today."

Arion closed his eyes briefly.

The ancient being did not feel hostile.

That did not make it safe.

It did, however, make the entire situation increasingly absurd.

He had expected resistance.

Threats.

Perhaps something so old and corrupted that communication would be barely recognizable.

Instead, whatever lay beneath the northern forest had imposed a conversational limit because it wanted to go back to sleep.

Arion adjusted.

If three questions truly meant three, he had already lost one.

No.

The creature had said three after Arion asked what it was.

Perhaps the first attempt had prompted the rule rather than consumed it.

Arion decided not to gamble on technicalities.

He chose carefully.

Who are you?

The response came more slowly this time.

For several moments there was only the distant pressure of the being resting somewhere beyond the ravine.

I was called Caeus.

The name settled strangely into the link.

Matthias inhaled.

Arion glanced toward him.

"You know it?"

Matthias shook his head.

The ancient presence continued before Arion could ask anything else.

I do not know if that is my name. It is simply one I remember.

A faint impression followed.

Dragon would also be acceptable.

Arion’s jaw tightened.

Theo... Of course.

Matthias looked toward him.

"The boy was not inventing it."

"No."

Marius shifted restlessly.

Ask the next one before he decides this is enough conversation for a century.

Arion agreed.

He reached again.

What are you?

This time the answer came almost immediately.

What your people now call enigma.

Everything inside Arion stopped.

The forest did not. Wind still moved. Water still ran somewhere below them. Marius’s breathing remained heavy through his beast form.

But for several seconds Arion heard none of it.

Enigma.

Hendrik spoke first.

"Repeat that."

Arion did not.

He could feel Matthias staring at him.

Victor’s voice lost every trace of humor.

"Arion, confirm."

"He said enigma."

Silence came over the communication line.

Arion’s mind moved through too many things at once.

Nero.

Asair.

Titan classifications buried beneath old mythology.

The ancient descriptions Matthias had recognized only after meeting Nero.

And now this.

Something older than Dominic, older than the elders, sleeping beneath the northern forest for centuries and calling itself the same secondary classification that existed publicly nowhere.

Arion’s gaze hardened.

He had one question left.

A dozen possibilities crowded behind it.

Where had the infection begun?

Had Caeus caused it?

Was he responsible for the beasts?

Why could Theo hear him?

Why had he answered Dean?

Why did the forest distort around his resting place?

Why did Theo call him a dragon before anyone had ever described him that way?

Marius turned his enormous head toward Arion.

Matthias said nothing.

They both understood the same problem.

One question.

Arion looked deeper into the trees.

Then chose the one that mattered most now.

Do you want to wake up?

The response came with such immediate irritation that the soil beneath Arion’s boots trembled.

No.

Arion waited.

The presence shifted, enormous and tired.

I want to be left alone.

There was no ambiguity in it. Only exhaustion so deep that Arion felt it like pressure against his chest.

I woke because the small one would not stop talking.

Arion’s eyes narrowed.

Behind him, Matthias made a strangled sound.

Marius lowered his head.

Arion almost laughed despite himself.

Theo had apparently managed, at four years old, to disturb an ancient enigma that had ignored emperors, elders, infected beasts, and over a century of people trying to understand what lived in the north.

Caeus continued.

He is quieter now.

"The barrier," Matthias murmured.

Arion’s expression hardened again.

The barrier stays.

A rumble rolled through the forest.

Good.

That surprised him.

Arion stood completely still.

The presence receded.

Not moving physically, as far as Arion could tell, but withdrawing deeper behind whatever strange distortion surrounded this part of the forest.

Before it disappeared entirely, one final thought reached him.

Three questions were enough.

The connection closed.

Birdsong did not return.

The forest remained unnaturally quiet.

Yet the weight pressing against Arion’s awareness was gone.

Matthias exhaled first.

Marius began changing back before Victor could object, his beast form collapsing gradually until an elderly man stood hunched beneath the trees, breathing hard while one of the officers hurried forward with his coat and cane.

He took both.

"I hated that."

Arion looked toward him.

"The transformation?"

"The conversation."

Hendrik’s voice came through the earpiece.

"You are returning now."

Arion glanced once toward the northern trees before turning back toward the ravine.

"For once, Hendrik, I agree."

Matthias stared after the forest for another moment before following.

Arion went with them.

The ancient one wanted sleep.

For now, Arion intended to give it exactly that.