I decided to skip one night of research, the tiredness of being up late all the time catching up with me. I was however awakened by a strange feeling. A pulse was coming, stronger than any other I had felt before. I rushed outside, guided by the pulling feeling. One of the lines began to shine brighter than the sun, nearly blinding me. I jumped towards it and put my hand on.

The wide doors of the building swung open inwards slowly, revealing the interior bit by bit. It was a surprisingly open space, the ceiling being held up by intricately designed columns that held no walls in between them. All around the large open area, people sat on cushions and benches, either reading or holding discussions with one another. All around the sides, shelves filled to the brim with books aligned the walls.

They earned a few stares as they entered, but most seemed to ignore them, engulfed in their talks or books as they were. Some were smoking pipes, others taking deep breaths from some strange device he hadn’t ever seen before.

Straight ahead of them, a spiralling staircase made its way upwards. The curvature of it was wide enough to allow access to a cage similar to the one they had used to get up into the city, although it was quite a bit smaller and round in shape.

A servant who had awaited them at the entrance guided the group towards the cage, or elivets as they called it, and motioned to get in. With a soft thud, the side of the cage closed and the chains above them started rattling, pulling them upwards. The spiral staircase followed them as they went. They passed several floors which only came into view briefly. Study rooms similar to the ground floor, long hallways with rooms on all sides, archways built into the side showing garden outside on the roof…

The four of them gave an audible gasp as the gardens came into view. Here, in the middle of the desert, lush green patches of grass, bushes and trees larger than Samos had ever seen were growing. The view lasted only a few seconds before the elivet took them higher. The walls narrowed and the staircase stopped climbing, eventually giving them the feeling they were being sucked up a cylindrical tube.

Out of nowhere, the walls suddenly expanded again and they found themselves at the centre of a large circular room. Sunlight coming in from windows above bathed the room in daylight, its warmth providing it with a pleasant temperature. At the largest window, taking up the better part of a section of an outwards jutted wall in between two doors, ten cushions were placed all with a small table in front of them. And on those ten cushions sat ten people, regarding the arriving group of them with intent stares as they arrived.

The servant who had made the climb with them opened the gate, allowing the six of them to step out. Guided by Tifara and Sador, the four of them walked up the steps towards the ten. They were of all ages, Samos noticed. The youngest of them was a woman who could not have been much older than himself while the oldest could have been his grandfather twice over.

Their two guides stopped, spoke in their strange language and bowed before moving to the side and taking place on cushions. Tifara gave them an encouraging nod, Sador ignored them completely.

“Come forward,” the elderly man spoke, his words showing no sign of any accent. “Come forward and tell us your names.”

Doing as instructed, they gave their names one by one.

“Four of you have come,” the woman next to him said. “Yet only one was expected. Where is the Sooarom?”

Sooarom, Samos remembered the word. That’s what they called a Son’Sha in their language.

“He stayed behind to cover our escape,” he answered, wondering where Ralph was at this moment. “We do not know where he is.”

The woman nodded. “It must have been quite the ordeal for the four of you to travel all the way here. I am certain the tiredness of the journey is seeping into your bones and some rest would be welcome, but I doubt you would be able to rest without getting some answers first.”

She regarded them one by one. “Ask.”

“Why are we here?” Faye blurted out immediately. Her cheeks flustered as all ten of the Conclave stared at her.

The elderly man gave her a sympathetic smile. “The answer to that question is a long one,” he began softly, “and it starts some sixty years ago. So let’s make sure you can endure the length of the story.”

He motioned to Tifara, who brought over some cushions for them to sit on. The look in her eyes showed the same interest Samos could see in the eyes of his friends. They were not the only ones eager for answers.

Once seated and comfortable, the man continued.

“Sixty-two years ago, I was elected for the Conclave for the first time. I was a young man and the time, my head full of new ideas and ways to improve our life here. Some weeks after the first election, something happened that hadn’t occurred in centuries. An outlander had found his way to Dadendam.

“We were first alerted by the guards at the elivet of Halarin, one of the towns below the city. The Conclave wanted to lock the man up and interrogate him, but I opted to bring him up and talk to him in person. Why torture a man who perhaps only stumbled upon our city by accident?”

He halted for a moment, taking a small sip from the cup on the low table before him.

“So he was brought up, the first outlander in centuries to walk the streets of Dadendam. I was excited. Sure we had our eyes and ears in the realm, but rarely did we have the chance to converse with someone who actually lived beyond the Calm Waste. Just like you he stood before us eventually and he told us his name was Ethel Hallwell.”

Yara gave an audible gasp and surprisingly, Tifara did the same.

“The elder members of the Conclave at the time knew of course who he was. Forty years is not enough to erase the memory of a Sooarom, even if he had been cast out by the Order. Upon hearing his name, the discussion to either lock him up or kill him on the spot flared up. I was the only fool who argued for another option. There hadn’t been a Sooarom in Dadendam for several decades, this was the opportunity of a lifetime I reasoned. Imagine what we could learn here with the aid of someone like him.

“Ethel himself took it all in stride, calmly waiting until we had finished. In the end, I somehow managed to convince the Conclave to keep him here as a free man. We allowed him access to our libraries, our research and, to some degree, our taen. For forty years he lived among us, befriending many and bringing about a lot of new discoveries using taen and makran. For forty years, a bond of friendship grew between the two of us.”

Sadness dripped through his words and a single tear found its way across the man’s cheek.

His voice turned harsh. “A bond based on lies and deceit. It has been more than twenty years now, but the wounds still feel only a day old. It was a day as any other and I was making my way to the gardens to meditate for a while. I was joined by Ethel. I remember the look in his eyes, there was something shining in them as if he had just discovered something he had been waiting for his entire life.

“Aram, old friend, he said to me. Today is the day I’ll be leaving you. Today is the day the world will change. Goodbye. Those are the only words I remember of that day. Something hit me at that moment, rendering me unconscious. When I awoke a day later, I was told Ethel had disappeared and had killed many of those who had considered him a friend and had shared in his studies. I was the only one that had been spared. The taen we kept in storage for experiments had disappeared along with him.”

The man, Aram, stuttered, hindered by the emotions the memories evoked. The woman at his side took over.

“Ever since then, we have been vigilant for any news that might have something to do with Ethel. Three years ago that news finally came when rumours of a single man taking down a small fleet by himself reached our ears. Not one year later more news emerged from Nokoroy where a man proclaiming himself as the Warbringer killed the ten pirate lords and took control of the city. It did not take long for us to confirm that this was indeed Ethel resurfacing and gathering men around him.

“We knew that only someone equal in power to Ethel could stand against him. So we had some of our Wisers track down that person, you know him well.”

“Ralph…” Samos whispered.

The woman nodded. “It took us a while, Ralph Aëron is a man who likes to travel around a lot. About two and half months ago, they finally found him at Ters, where a Testing was taking place. But something was off in their readings. There were people around this Sooarom that were connected to him, their lines interweaving with one another. Two men and a woman, all young and with an enormous dormant potential.”

Samos, Eder and Yara gave each other a quick look, the questions obvious in their eyes.

“Our Wisers followed them southwards to the city of Sandos as well as they could manage, difficult as it was across the ocean. There, they told us, another line interwove with the others.”

This time it was Faye who received looks from the other three.

“Fortunately, we have people in Sandos able to communicate with us quickly. They informed us of the travel plans and we send some of our most experienced people north towards Vorna. Rumours emerging from that city and others was reason enough for us to assume something could happen there. And as you all have experienced, something did happen. Ethel must have suspected the course Ralph Aëron would take and stationed his men there.”

A silence fell over the room. Bit by bit, Samos was taking in everything they had just been told. Interweaving lines. Somehow they were connected to Ralph in all this.

“There’s something I still don’t understand,” Yara spoke up. “According to your Wisers we are connected to Lord Aëron in one way or another. But to what end? What is it they expect from him? And from us?”

Aram spoke again, his emotions overcome. “In some way, every person on this world is connected with one another. Some stronger than others. Power seeks power, the powerful seek the powerful even if unintended. As to your question why, there is no clear answer. If it is destiny you’re looking for, you won’t find it. We are all just a products of our times, our own paths to follow. But sometimes, those paths will intertwine with each other and great things can happen, both for good and for bad.

“This is one of those times were those paths meet and congregate into roads. The only thing you have to do is decide which way you will turn when you eventually cross another road.”

“And that other road,” Faye whispered, “is Ethel?”

He shrugged. “It might be, it might not be. For all we know, your roads could separate again into individual paths and go an entirely different direction than we had thought. The events of Vorna are proof enough of that. Only time will tell.”

“It has been a long journey for you,” the woman spoke up. “You must be exhausted. Go, rest. Let these words sink in, give them time. We will speak again later.”

True to her words, Samos felt the tiredness he had been ignoring ever growing. His friends did not seem to be in any better shape. Sleep now, worry tomorrow.