Valentine

"Wally."

"Yes, Val?"

"What in all the gods are you doing?"

"I'm examining this regolith."

"Oh, is that so? Because it appears that you're playing with dirt."

"It's not dirt, it's regolith," he insisted, "Well-" he continued, speaking more to himself than to me, "Hold on, is it still regolith now that it's been in an atmosphere for long enough?"

"Is regolith the human word for grey dirt?"

"No, it means- Well, I don't actually know what it means. But regolith is what you call dirt on the moon. Or mars. Or whatever."

"Are we not on a moon?" I frowned, "You and Irony spoke of little else over dinner and breakfast, I seem to recall you saying something about how this world is a moon of the Father? What do you find so fascinating about this particular pile of dirt?"

We'd left Caniforma just after breakfast and had arrived at the first rest stop between Caniforma and Pelignos less than an hour later.

I'd been through several times and had never found anything exceptional about it. It wasn't like anything I'd ever seen before the Calamity, but then I'd lived a sheltered life. And compared to what I'd seen post-Calamity, the grey dirt and stone were nothing special. The sizeable vertical tunnel at the rest stop's core was a little odd, but this was a Caniforman rest-stop. Extensive tunnelling and elaborate earthworks were to be expected of the gnomes.

Though the rest stop's safe area was limited, at least above ground, there were still a half-dozen goblin manors crammed into what space there was. Each was built from a combination of the area's grey stone, and whatever trees had been available in the lowlands nearby.

This rest stop was the firm possession of Caniforma, and though the network of rest stops linking the cities had been discovered within the first month or two post-Calamity, this was the first to be colonized.

The gnomes had pounced on it, seeing half their work done for them. The goblins, unperturbed by the lack of arable land, had joined them in making themselves at home.

My concern coming here, aside from the possibility of running into some of my kin who may be keen on abducting me, was that his curiosity would get us into trouble investigating the tunnels.

The gnomes don't permit anyone below ground here, not even the goblins, despite the two species being so close that they seemed to be one people. Travel within the Caniforman tunnels was permitted, the whole of their underground city was open to outsiders, but not here. Adding to the mystery was the mass of chimneys that erupted from the grey stone's surface, and the smoke one could frequently see billowing forth.

Instead, he'd hammered on the roof for me to stop the moment we crested the rise, and had scrambled out of the truck to begin pawing at the dirt.

"Different sort of moon," Wally explained, "All this must have come from a moon like the Earth has," Wally still had some of the special moon dirt cupped in one hand, and he held it out for my inspection, "See here? There's some weathering, but it can't be more than a few decades worth. When this piece of land first arrived, these grains would have been much more jagged. Over time the wind and rain have smoothed out the sharp edges, and the wind and tides would have carried off the finest of the dust, but you can still tell this isn't any ordinary sort of dirt."

"You can?"

Wally rolled his eyes and sighed. He brushed the magic moon dirt off his hands and looked around. When he saw the big hole in the ground, he froze.

"Is that a lava tube?" he exclaimed, "We are so totally on the moon right now!"

"Okay Wally," I said, patting his arm, "Tell me why the big hole is special."

"Lava tube," Wally corrected, "They formed when the lava drains away after an eruption. It leaves a void behind. Not a bad place if you want to build a moon habitat since all the rock can protect you from the cosmic rays."

"Is a cosmic ray some sort of human spirit? Is that what the gnomes are doing, hiding down there?"

"What? No, it's radiation from space," he explained, "Not that we need to worry. We've got an atmosphere, and the gas giant's magnetosphere probably helps a ton."

I feel as if I should be taking notes.

I threw up my arms, "Has your translation enchantment stopped working?"

Wally laughed, "Sorry, Val. The lava tube might be big enough for me to fit though, do you want to check it out?"

I shook my head, "They don't let anyone below ground, not here. And no, I don't know why."

Wally frowned swept his gaze across his surroundings, pausing on each chimney and manor.

"Ah, they're probably trying to get the metal out of the lunar rock and don't want anyone to know about it," he revealed, as if it were nothing special, "Aluminum contains, what, Illusion and Protection mana?"

I spread my hands, "How can you possibly know that?"

Wally tapped his foot on the grey stone, "Regolith is mostly oxygen and aluminium with some other stuff mixed in, like iron, titanium, and magnesium. They'd need a tremendous amount of heat," he went on gesturing at the chimneys, "But it looks like it's worth it. Who knows what sorts of mana titanium and magnesium might have? Let alone what you could do with a ton of Illusion mana."

I quirked an eyebrow, "I thought regolith was the dirt?"

"You're right about that," he agreed, "Which is probably part of the reason there's so little of it covering all this bare rock, they probably scooped it all up the moment they realized what it was, but regolith is just tiny bits of moon rock. It won't be as easy as scooping up buckets of dirt, but it's not like they need to follow a vein of ore. If they can get the heat they need to render it down, all of this may as well be ore."

"Wally?"

"Yes, Val?"

"That's fascinating, can we get back in the truck now?"

"Okay, just... I swore I had a pouch around here somewhere."

The trip to the next rest stop did not come as easy as the one prior. While before there had been only open savannah to venture across, here the ground was broken, with slopes so steep one could see exposed bedrock, striped in a consistent pattern across the whole formation. Though I could see the tips of the black spires that marked the next rest stop in the distance, crossing that distance was another matter.

I turned, resting my arm on the back of the seat, "Well?"

Wally jerked his head up. Not asleep, I realized belatedly, but focused on the pouch of dirt he'd taken.

"Yeah? Oh," Wally sat up straighter and peered over the roof of the truck, "Well, I guess we're not going to be in Pelignos for dinner."

"We could always wait it out," I suggested, "Noon is still a few hours off, I think we could make it back to The Maiden for lunch. We could wait out the rest of Last Light and The Long Night there, and see what the tides bring us in the morning? I'm sure Irony would love to hear more about astrology, and I'm sure the two of us could find some way to pass the time."

"If we go back to The Maiden, you're spending the whole time bound and gagged," Wallace replied wryly.

I leapt up and turned around, both arms over the back of the seat, "Really?" I beamed.

"Yeah, how else am I gonna keep you from bothering me?" Wallace replied with a roll of the eyes, "Come on, we'll go around. We've got plenty of time, but only so much daylight. I don't want to try getting through the badlands in the dark."

"Spoilsport," I muttered, as I put the truck into gear.

With the sun so low to the horizon and the landscape masked by long shadows, it was difficult to get a sense of the scale of what stood before me. This was far from my first time visiting, but even with first-hand knowledge, the structures were so foreign that it was difficult to make sense of what I was seeing. To reconcile it with the rest of the world.

The truck creaked and shifted, and I didn't need to glance in the mirror mounted to the windshield to know that our destination had drawn Wallace's attention.

I wondered if it unsettled him, as it did myself, or if his boundless curiosity would inoculate him against the alien landscape.

It took some time, as we approached the field of seamless black stone, for the scent to reach my nose. It was about the time we drew near enough for me to distinguish individual spikes from the forest of those that jutted up from the landscape. Made of the same black stone and blending seamlessly into the ground, each was the height of two or three men, and most had smaller spikes jutting off at right angles. The wind of our passage stole away most of Wally's scent, but it reached me now and again. And this time it was laced with stark, pungent fear.

My foot moved to the brake, but Wally urged me onwards.

"Keep going," he commanded, his voice cold, "Take us all the way around, and slow. I need to get a good look at this."

I'd intended to stop on the Caniforman side of the spike field, where the goblins had a small outpost and waystation, but I did as Wallace bade me. I drove in a circuit, counterclockwise about the edge of the black stone. We passed the Pelignosi outpost on the far side, continuing our course, though our passing did not go unnoticed.

"Hold," Wallace called, and I brought the truck to an abrupt halt.

The truck rocked as he jumped out of the bed. He strode over to the edge of the black stone where there was some evidence of digging. They, likely my own people commanding sprites to do the work, had dug down beside the stone.

Perhaps in an attempt to get underneath?

But they'd little success. There were pick marks on the black stone, and rubble at the bottom of the hole, but they'd not made it more than a few feet before coming to a halt.

Wallace came back to the truck and laid his hand on the bottom of the open window, and I noticed that the scent of fear was now shot through with anger, "I want to finish checking the rest of this," he told me, gesturing back towards the Caniforman side, "Then we go in."

Without another word, he took his place in the back of the truck, and he finished what I was becoming to think of as an inspection of the field's perimeter.

It was not uncommon to venture within the field of spikes, it was, after all, the shortest way across. Neither the Caniformans nor my own people could lay full claim to this rest stop, and while the two camps remained apart, there was peace between the two cities. So in the morning, when it came time to venture to the next rest stop, people from both sides would cross the field on the way to their destination.

But I could think of few who would dare to cross the field at night.

The sun seemed to flicker behind us as we snaked our way through the disordered mess, the thin spikes reaching up behind us to blot out the light for a moment at a time.

I'd not told Wallace of it. Indeed, I'd hardly spoken a word since the field had come into view, but it was clear that Wallace was not surprised to find the shrine at the centre of the thicket of spikes.

There stood six monoliths, each as tall as the tallest of the spikes, the inside face of each carved with a different set of incomprehensible symbols. At the circle's centre was a collection of tablets, smaller than the monoliths, and covered in more strange characters and arcane diagrams. Though there was little wind this evening, the wind made an eerie howl as it passed through the shrine, and the effect raised goosebumps on my flesh.

I brought the truck to a halt before entering the circle of monoliths. With great trepidation, I opened my door and hopped down from the truck to follow Wallace within the shrine. I stayed deathly silent as he inspected each monolith, pausing at one, evidently to read.

Some of Wally's notes, the characters look the same.

He moved on, venturing within the collection of tablets, reading the messages and studying the diagrams at length.

We'd gathered a crowd by the time he'd finished, drawn by the headlights of the truck and strangeness of our arrival.

"You," Wallace intoned, pointing at the most ostentatious of the fey that had gathered, "Who are you?"

I knew the man, knew that if circumstances had been different, he would have taken great offence at the manner of address, but a strange quality of the field seemed to subdue the will. And we were not only within the field but at its centre, within the shrine.

"I am Magistrate Visellius, responsible for the administration of the Pelignosi delegation here."

Wallace's response was flat but had the air of an accusation. "There's evidence of digging near your delegation."

The Magistrate nodded hesitantly, "Yes, we stopped."

"Why?"

"Simon, he's-"

"I know who Simon is."

"He said he'd take the hands of the next man to lay a pick against the stone, and the head of the man who gave the order."

Wally turned to scan the collection of gnomes and goblins that had joined the spectators.

"Aye," one of them called out, stepping forwards into the light cast by the headlights, "He said as much to us as well," the gnome jerked his chin at the tablets, "Is this place sacred to your people?"

"Very much the opposite."

"Do you think he was serious?" The Magistrate asked, "Simon is many things. He's a devious, conniving, wife-stealing bastard, but surely not a killer."

"Nah," Wallace replied, slowly shaking his head, "He'll do it. I wouldn't fuck around with this place if I were you. We're standing on the collective nightmares of humanity. I'm sure as hell glad I don't live next door to this. Better Simon need to keep an eye on it than me."

The gnomes still appeared doubtful. Cognizant of the reality of Simon's threat, but doubtful. They didn't understand. Gods neither did I, nor any of the other fey. But we could smell Wallace's fear, and that was enough.

"Come on, Val," Wally sighed, "We're not sleeping here tonight."