Chapter 106 Something Worth Protecting (Part 1)

The silver bell rang, and the sound it made was small. Almost nothing. The smallest of high-pitched chimes, one that did not carry beyond the yard we stood in, let alone to wherever this Arianrhod was. I suspected that did not matter.

"What's that?" Alisa asked. She was staring at the strange bell, one eyebrow raised.

"Arianrhod gave it to us," Ash explained. "She said to use it if we ever needed to call for her."

Alisa's other eyebrow rose to join the first, until both disappeared into her hair. "You're calling the Arianrho-"

The air behind her split into yellow. A cut through the world, taller than Alisa herself. And from it stepped a woman. The weight of her Essence filled the yard. My knees nearly buckled. Ash went tense beside me. Solara let out a small hiss from atop my head. Alisa went down to her knees entirely. The air itself had gone heavy, and each breath felt like trying to take in water.

She was exactly as I had last seen her. Her silver armor shone in a light that came from nowhere. Her greatsword hung in her left hand as though it weighed nothing at all. She looked at us, and then glanced around the yard, which was entirely empty. "There are no beasts here," she said. "I gave you that bell to ring if the need arose." She slung the sword across her back and folded her arms. The weight withdrew, and my legs steadied. The air was only air again. Then her gaze moved from Ash and me to Alisa, who shakily found her feet.

"While I did not ask you to keep that a secret," she said, with a glance at the silver bell, "I had assumed the two of you would have sense enough to keep it anyway."

"There is a reason she knows," I said, and gestured at the girl. "This Great Hunt requires a party of four. Something you never mentioned." The woman made no reaction to this. "We have chosen her as one of our two."

Arianrhod was quiet. She turned the full weight of her attention on Alisa. The girl did as she always did. She raised her chin, and tried to appear taller than she was. It did not work. Her chin lowered by degrees, and she squirmed beneath the woman's gaze, and at last her own gaze fell squarely to the grass between Arianrhod's boots. I did not know whether to commend this Alisa for the effort or name her a fool. The first, I decided. I had been half-certain she would bow in worship.

Arianrhod, one of the Three Hands of the Divine, sighed. She turned back to us. "I did not tell you of this because there was no point in telling you then. You require companions, and there is no better place to acquire them than Azareth itself. Telling you earlier would have achieved nothing, save to divide your attention from the things you needed to do at the time. There was one student who I had hoped might have served the role well, had it not been for her other deficiencies. Mayhaps there is still time for her."

I did not know who this other student was supposed to be, and it did not matter. I knew the reason for her secrecy now. It, at least, was a reason I recognized well enough. I had commanded in the same fashion once, in the first decades of my reign. I had sent Zera to slay a beast that had made its den in the mountains at the edge of my realm. Slay it, I had told her, and nothing more. I had not told her that the den was above rich vein of mana crystals. One I attempted to claim. The reasoning had been simple then. She was a general, and she required only her orders. The rest was her Queen's concern. Zera had done precisely as I asked. She had slain the beast, and in the slaying brought half the mountain down upon its den, and the vein was lost to me forever. Had I told her everything, she might not have even slain the creature at all. She might have tamed it, and spared the mountain entirely. I had been furious with her, for a failure that had been mine alone. It had taken me years to understand that. Longer still to admit it.

It was also foolishness. The kind of foolishness I had only learned to avoid after centuries of experience. One gave their subordinates all of the information one could safely give them. If that was cause for distraction, then the problem lay with the subordinates themselves. I said none of this.

"And now you have chosen a third companion," Arianrhod continued, when neither Ash nor I said anything. "And for your third companion, you have chosen someone with… a Line. Only a Line."

The woman did not so much as glance in Alisa's direction, but the girl wilted anyway.

"We chose her," Ash said. "By all the customs of the Great Hunt, we can choose whoever we want, for any reason we want. We can even choose a Spark."

That much was true. It was one of the larger reasons I had not hesitated to choose this Alisa at all. The right to select one's own party was sacrosanct in this strange religion. It was also curious. For the original Hero's Party had been chosen by the System entirely. What that meant, I did not know.

"You are quoting scripture to me," Arianrhod said flatly, glancing at Ash. "Did I say you could not accept her as one of your companions?" When Ash did not answer, Arianrhod continued. "I did not. You may choose her, if you wish. If she wants to set her life at even greater hazard than all those who already walk the Great Hunt, then that is her choice to make. But it is a foolish one."

Alisa's hands closed at her sides. She said nothing. Neither did I. The woman was not wrong, after all. It was a foolish choice. I had simply learned that there was more than one kind of fool, and I had chosen the girl's kind deliberately.

"What is your name, girl?" Arianrhod asked, turning to her.

"A-Alisa," she said quickly. "Alisa Wulfram."

"Wulfram," Arianrhod said softly. She tilted her head, just slightly. "I recall that name. And I also recall his objections in the Council of Lords," the woman said the word coldly, "against the Great Hunt. Is he aware that his second daughter now means to join it?"

I frowned and glanced at Alisa. Ash was frowning in her direction too. Perhaps even Solara was. I did not know what this 'Council of Lords' was. Or that her father's name was one even Arianrhod would recognize.

"He does not know," Alisa said.

Arianrhod continued to stare at her. “I see. Very well. If you mean to join the Great Hunt of your own free will, then there in no-one who can refuse. Be they King or kin. I will see to it that the choice remains yours.”

So the choices of a volunteer were sacred, while the claimed were given none at all. I wondered if the woman understood the contradiction. Zealots often did not.

"Thank you," Alisa said, still staring at the grass.

Then Arianrhod folded her arms and regarded us. "Do tell me you did not summon me to this place simply because you wished for me to see her."

"We did not," I said. This would require careful framing. For while this woman possessed power unlike almost anyone else I had seen in this world, that power was its own problem. She had no reason to take us to Hamel. None at all. "Before we embark on this Great Hunt, I wish to visit a place. The place where we were Inked. A small village called Hamel, a week's travel from here." I gestured toward the sword across her back. "With your power, it should be a simple affair."

"And why would I do that?" she asked.

Ash shifted next to me. Solara fidgeted atop my head. I had my answer. I had not summoned this woman on a whim. "You are sending us somewhere dangerous. Somewhere neither of us wishes to go." I gestured at Ash. "But I understand that these Blighted Lands are a danger to everyone. And so-" I paused. There was more to say, and it was too large for the words I had.

"We'll do better," Ash stepped in, "if we see something worth protecting first." She said it simply, as though the words came easily to her. Perhaps they did.

Arianrhod glanced at her, then at me. Slowly, she nodded. "Very well. You may see this Hamel. But come the first light of dawn, I will return to collect you. Be there when I do." She did not say what would happen if we were not. She did not have to.

"Hamel," she mused, half to herself. "There was something strange about the lands surrounding that place. I inspected them myself, a month ago. I found nothing."

It took all the willpower I had honed across two lifetimes to give nothing away. Anything might have been enough. A flinch. A breath drawn too quickly. The slightest trembling of the hands.

"Oh? It was a quiet village when we left it," Ash said smoothly.

Arianrhod glanced at her. "I was told you were Inked at this Hamel. And that before then, you went from place to place, traveling. The Archon informed me you have no place you would call home." I wondered what else Valtheris had told this woman. Likely everything Aldric had seen and heard on the day he first found us.

Ash did not wilt under that stare. She only smiled, and it was one of her sadder smiles. "I doubt that's an uncommon story."

For the first time, I saw something in the woman other than her strange blankness, or her stranger and rarer smile. Nothing in her face changed, and yet her shoulders sank. By a hair. Perhaps less. "Indeed. It is not. Especially in recent years," she said. "The only oddity is the age at which you took the Ink, and the marks you received, when you did take it." She shook her head.

In one instant her arms were folded. In the next, her sword was in her hand, cutting the air to her left. I had not seen her move at all. The world beside her split into yellow. She reached inside, and I wondered just what the woman meant to draw out. She drew out… a map. Or at least, I was fairly certain it was a map.

"Hamel. Hmm." She stretched the map before her, and studied it for the length of a single second. "I see." Then she tossed it back into the strange slice, and the slice closed. Ash and I shared a glance. We looked back at the woman.

She opened another slash behind her. This time I saw her move, though only barely. A great gash hung in the world. "This will take you to that place, or very near it," Arianrhod said. "I will find you come dawn. Go." She stepped aside.

Ash reached for my hand. I let her take it. Solara let out a small chirp, the first sound she had made in some time. We stepped through the yellow.

The tear behind us closed, and we were left standing in a forest. I glanced around. At the trees. At the dirt. At the stars that shone above. It was a human forest. There were others like it. Thousands, perhaps. Even that Basic Survival chamber had been a forest. Yet somehow, I knew exactly where this was. I took a deep breath, and it felt like the first real breath I had taken in some time.

Alisa fell to her knees, gasping for air. "Hey, you okay?" Ash said, leaning down toward her, hands on her shoulders.

"I'm fine, Ash," Alisa said. "That portal thing was-" She shook her head. "I didn't think it would feel the way it did. And that was- I didn't think Arianrhod would have such presence."

Ash helped her to her feet. I took a few steps to the side, toward a small stream that ran nearby. It carried the stars past my feet. Solara let out a loud chirp from atop my brow. She rose, and flew down to the ground beside the stream. She watched it.

"Do you find this to your liking?" I asked her. "This is a forest. You have seen something like one before. This one is far larger. You will run into no walls, should you travel too far."

Solara turned, looked at me, and chirped twice. Then she turned again and waddled to the stream's edge, where she began to peck at the water. I stayed close, to make certain the tiny phoenix did not fall in. She could approximate swimming, but it was best to be careful.

Ash walked up beside me, Alisa in tow. "Feels almost strange to be back here," she said.

"Not in a bad way," I said. It surprised me that I said it.

"Not in a bad way," Ash smiled. "We're about… two minutes away from the village."

I raised an eyebrow. "You can tell? Even in this darkness?" I knew the Hero's sense of direction was rather absurd. She had memorized every turn and twist of an Academy that had only confounded me. Did that extend even to this?

"Yep," Ash grinned. "I recognize this place. I came here once or twice, when one of the villagers needed fish."

That would certainly explain things.

Solara let out a mighty chirp. She was asking to be raised. She could fly now, and only occasionally smack my forehead in the doing. I leaned down, cupped the baby phoenix, and set her atop my head.

"So this… Hamel," Alisa said the word carefully. "This place is… important to you both? That's why you wanted to come here before Azareth, right?"

"Yes," I said, and nothing more.

Alisa slowly nodded, as if I had not said one word but a hundred.

"Alisa, what's this 'Council of Lords', she called it?" Ash asked. It was a question I had been meaning to ask the girl too.

Alisa frowned at us. "It's no great secret. The King has representatives from each of the provinces. They make up the 'Council of Lords'. He takes their opinions before he makes any decision of importance. My father is…" she shrugged. "One of the louder voices there. I still didn't think Arianrhod would care to remember it."

"I see," I said. A strange system, but I had certainly heard of stranger ones during my long rule. "In any event, it seems your coming with us will no longer be a problem." How Arianrhod would properly ensure that was a mystery. Perhaps she would simply appear next to the man, inform him, and leave, assuming full well that there would be no resistance. That is what I would have done.

"Seems so," Alisa said. She did not smile, but something in her voice carried one anyway.

The girl had her own reasons for joining. Ones she had not shared, even as she had shown us the power of her mark. And she had a father who opposed this Great Hunt, one of the pillars of these people's religion. I suspected that one thing had something to do with the other. It seemed that Alisa was more than I had assumed. I would not demand the answers. If the girl did not offer them in her own time, then I would ask. Not before.

I turned to Ash. "Lead us, Ash."

"Just follow behind me, then," the Hero said, already turning. "And be careful." She began to make her way through the trees. I followed.

"Careful?" Alisa whispered. "She means like… from a wolf?"

"There are more dangerous things in this forest than a mere wolf, girl," I said. We had met a Cerberus's cousin in this forest, and a corrupted Divine Beast besides, so very long and yet not so long ago. I had Sigils now, but I was not fool enough to think that made me invincible.

We walked through the forest in silence. Even Solara did not chirp. Alisa walked close to me. I had made her walk close to me, for when I had not, the girl had walked headfirst into a tree. She claimed she had not seen it at all, and wondered aloud how we could see anything in this darkness. I had not thought about it before. Even in this body, I could see reasonably well in the dark. There was no fine vision to it, but I could see well enough not to walk into a trunk. And the Hero's senses were keener still. Some part of me suspected she would have found her way with her eyes closed.

Dawn, the woman had said. It was not much. The village would be asleep, and most of it would remain asleep for the whole of our visit. I did not even know what we would accomplish here. Sara would be asleep too. For one moment, the thought came that this had been a waste. That I had spent our last free night on nothing at all. No. I crushed the thought before it could finish forming. The necklace with the green stone sat in my satchel. Perhaps seeing her at all, and leaving the necklace for her to find in the morning would be enough. The clay bead sat warm against my collar, as if in agreement.

Eventually, the trees thinned. And we saw it. A low wall that hardly deserved the name. And yet it was not only that. Was it simply my imagination, or was the wall taller than when we had left it? And there were sharp stakes along its top that had certainly not been there before.

And past the wall, near the gate, there was light. A small ocean of it, gathered against the darkness. Lanterns hung in a line above the gate and set upon posts beside it, enough of them that the little gate glowed like a hearth against the night. Two men stood in that light.

They wore armor, but only in the loosest sense. One set might have been made out of leather. The other looked like nothing more than a particularly thick shirt on an especially round man. Both men had helmets I suspected had begun their lives as cooking pots. Both men -I could tell that much- had spears that were little more than sticks with something sharp tied to their ends.

We approached. Solara shifted atop my head. Alisa drifted closer to my side.

One of the two men stared in our direction. He muttered something to his fellow, and then the second man called out. "Who's there?! Show yourselves. You're people, aren't ya? My sight might not be what it used to be, but I can tell that much. Come out where we can see ya." He punctuated this by tapping the butt of his spear against the ground.

I looked at Ash. She was smiling. Perhaps I wore a small one of my own. For I knew that voice well enough. I simply had not recognized his face, beneath the excuse for a helmet he was wearing. It was Tom. We walked closer without saying anything.

Tom murmured something to his companion. Then they both raised their spears. What the two of them meant to do with them, even I could not say. We stepped into the light.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Ash said. I stepped in beside her. Alisa, for some reason, chose to remain half a step behind us.

Tom stared. "Ash?" he said. The spear slipped from his hand entirely and was lost somewhere in the dirt. "Lily?" He shook himself. His voice had gone hoarse, for some reason.

Solara chose that exact moment to loose a mighty chirp. A chirp that had rung off every wall in the Academy. There were no walls here.

Tom stared up at her.

"It's good to be back," Ash said.

I agreed with her.