Chapter 32 – Convergence

“Report,” Septum commanded.

He didn’t want to spend a moment longer in these dreary tunnels than required, but with the hideout raid having been a failure he needed a win. The Church of Rags was a good place to start.

“The gates aren’t budging,” said the executor in charge, his hands twitching nervously. He gestured to the great stone doors before them, lit up using spotlights. They were marred by black patches but were otherwise undamaged. “We tried to blow our way through. Hack our way through. Even brought a geomancer to do what they do. It’s all been useless.

“That’s not to mention the maze itself, of course. Navigating it has already claimed several of my men. It’s like it’s… evolving. A murderous thing.”

“I’m not surprised,” Septum said, approaching the gates. “Gods are nefarious.” He paused for a moment. “Gisa clearly didn’t construct this, however—she doesn’t have the mind for it—and it is greater than what the priests of a dead pantheon could accomplish.”

“If you say so, sir,” the executor said. “With all due respect, some of the men are worried.”

Septum frowned at the officer. “Worried? Why?”

“Because of what’s been happening these last few weeks. Archons are dying, and so are lower officers. Almost a third of my inquisitors are dead. It’s becoming difficult to organize anything. I’ve got ensigns running around all over the place, not knowing what their jobs are. There have even been desertions.”

The executor looked expectantly at Septum for him to speak, but he remained quiet in order to force the man to conclude his point.

“S-so, all I wanted to ask is, and forgive my boldness—what should be done about it?”

The longer Septum was quiet, the more the executor fidgeted, as if he expected to be pulled to his knees and shot in the head for his defiance.

Septum put a hand on the man’s shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. “These are difficult times for all of us. Savages on the borders, terrorists in our cities, old gods come back to oppress us. In the face of such evil, what man or kin wouldn’t balk at his mission?”

Septum pulled at the man’s emotional strings a little, extracted some information. Found his name, among other things. No sound sweeter to a person than their own name.

“Executor Palm, you are one of the good ones. Despite the horrors that lie in wait for us all, you stand tall for justice, for the immutable ways of our people. Know that you’re not alone in all this. I will protect you in the battles to come. I am the Concord’s keeper, and I won’t let it slip into the hands of savages and traitors.”

Palm nodded enthusiastically. “Thank you, sir.”

“And as for the problem you mentioned, I have no direct solution, as this is a crisis that will rock the nation to its foundations. Weathering it will not be without its challenges. However, for now, I want you and your men to pull out of this tunnel. There is clearly nothing to be gained from banging on these doors. They are built from old magic, impervious against most modern means.”

Palm seemed relieved and began looking to his forlorn men with an apprehensive smile. “Thank you doubly. Truth be told, the men were beginning to lose hope. But what would you have us do instead?”

“I want you to question the population around the temple, as many as you can. Find someone who has knowledge of the Church of Rags and their numbers. A former member, perhaps. Use any means necessary. Any citizen harboring a priest is considered a traitor to our nation. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir!” Palm said briskly.

Septum left the man to his own devices and turned back towards the tunnel, the correct path illuminated by a chain of magelights.

As infuriating as these rebels have proven, the noose is tightening.

Soon they will have nowhere left to run.

***

Linton suffered that night, without the privilege of oblivion.

He tossed around on the thin bed which the priests had deposited him on. One minute he was clawing as many blankets on himself as he could find, cold to the bone, and the next kicking them all off again, hot as though someone had lit a fire under the bed. A perpetual sheen of cold sweat covered his body.

His mind bridged dreaming and waking, putting him in a surreal haze of colors and shapes and creatures. The pain was a constant, however. It never lessened. Every breath, every slight movement set fire to the lining of his lungs. He became starkly aware of every moment, counting them into infinity as he hoped his suffering would end.

At one point, Linton became aware that someone was speaking to him. A diffuse, faceless figure, muttering nonsense. Then, before he could answer, it was gone, and his mother was there in its place.

“Come on, little guy,” Quintilla said with a patient smile, leaning down to pat him on the head. “One more time into the dark place for me, okay?”

“No!” Linton screamed. “No, get away!” he swatted at her arm, but his hand went right through her.

“There’s nothing to it,” Quintilla continued, uninterrupted. “Just like learning how to swim, remember?”

“No… go away…” Linton mumbled. A coughing fit rendered his voice hoarse and weak. “Not the dark place.”

Quintilla frowned. Her disappointment was apparent.

Another shape went through her, and she crumbled away into dust. A woman was at his side, all fiery hair.

Cat.

Linton smiled. “Hey…” he said. “I missed you, sis.”

“Are you alright?” she asked. She reached out a hand to touch him, but hesitated and pulled it away. “You were calling out.”

“Was I? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt—” He coughed, and she wiped blood from his lip with the edge of her sleeve. “I know you’re trying to study.” He paused, frowning at his own words. “No, that’s not right. You graduated, didn’t you?”

“I dropped out.”

“Right. Not the brightest.”

Cat gave him a soft hug “Hang in there, okay? Doc will be here for you all night if you need anything.”

Linton blinked, and she was gone. He called for her, but she didn’t come back.

***

Cat lingered in the doorway while Linton thrashed weakly and murmured under his breath.

“He’s not getting better, is he?” Frost asked, sitting behind a table in the room beyond.

“He thought I was still in school,” Cat said. “I haven’t gone to school in, wow, many years.”

“All the commotion certainly didn’t help,” Doc said. He stood over Aeva, who lay in the bed next to Linton, sleeping peacefully. Doc had already taken care of most of her injuries. “He is recovering, though. This night will be the worst, because he’s lucid enough to feel it all. But if he makes it through, his fever might break in the morning.”

“What do we do until then?” Frost asked.

“Imwe has called for a meeting,” Cat said. “Codes, that’s a weird sentence. A meeting with not one, but two supposedly dead goddesses. Anyway, they want us in the temple as soon as we’re able.”

“We don’t take orders from them.”

“I know, but right now they might be the only two people with the ability to make sense of all this. I say we wait until Aeva’s back on her feet, then make our way up there. She won’t want to miss this.”

***

Aeva felt refreshed when she awoke. Doc had clearly done his best work on her, and the only evidence of her extensive injuries were a few bruises around one shoulder and lightning-patterned scars running down her side.

There was no way to know what time it was inside the cave city, but Doc informed her that it was still night, and that they were gathering for a meeting with the two goddesses.

Aeva felt some trepidation at the thought of seeing Gisa again after the goddess had attempted to seize control of her body. She was reminded of something Linton had said—the goddesses might have tricked them at some point along the way.

Regardless, their alliance with the Church of Rags was vital, and it presented the only option to move forward with their operation. As such, they set out into the city.

The building the priests had given them to heal their wounded lay near the center of the Undercity, a small, utilitarian house constructed entirely from stone.

Before heading to the temple, they went to secure some supplies. The hideout had apparently been lost to the MOW, so they had no access to the weapons or materials required to continue their fight.

Luckily, the Undercity had an extensive black market system. Grocers, gun dealers, enchanters, even chem traders.

Pooling their money together, they discovered they had only a little over a thousand glints. It was clear they would have to skimp on some things.

Since Aeva had the most experience with conventional weaponry, she was sent off with Frost and half the money to buy some.

Frost found a gun dealer who was a lubbard outcast, like him, willing to cut them a slightly better deal out of some kindred spirit. They would still only have had the funds for one or two handguns, so Aeva decided to buy some discounted, partially assembled firearms, along with the parts to put them together. Growing up in Anderland, where human civilization was a distant thing and factories were only stories you’d tell at night, Aeva had been forced to assemble guns from scrap many times and had thus gained an intuition for it.

After Frost haggled down the price, they left the trader with a bag full of parts and a few hundred glints remaining.

Given their extra funds, they went to an enchanter for raw materials. Frost had a special project he wanted to work on, although he wouldn’t give any details.

Afterwards, they met back up with Cat and Doc, who had purchased food and medical supplies. After going back to the house to drop everything off and check up on Linton, they headed for the temple.

One of the bald-headed priests met with them outside and guided them through the temple. They were taken past the public area, through the private room dedicated to worship, and into another, more intimate chamber.

There waited Imwe, sitting cross-legged on the floor amidst a veritable mountain of pillows, rugs, and offerings. Gisa paced around the back of the chamber, fists clenched.

Two humans already sat before them. Castlieri, dour as always, and the woman with the cat on her shoulder, who introduced herself as ‘Stranger’, Imwe’s spymaster.

The goddesses towered high above everyone in the room, both around four meters in height.

Once Aeva and the others were seated, Imwe inclined her head slightly in greeting.

“We mourn the absence of your leader,” Imwe said. “His insight would have been valued.”

“He might have been here if you’d lift a finger to help him,” Cat said between gritted teeth.

“We are but shadows of what we once were. Until we unify our people and regain their complete faith, we cannot be truly whole. We cannot afford to divert what power we have towards matters that may resolve themselves naturally.”

Cat did not look convinced, but a nudge from Doc quietened her.

“It’d be nice to know why we were called here,” Frost said, pale eyes flitting between the two goddesses. “You know, aside from the chit-chat.”

Gisa stopped her pacing and faced the rest of the room. “This is a war council. The enemy is upon us.”

“What my sister means to convey is that a force of so-called truthers is currently occupying one of the entrances to the city,” Imwe added. “The Ministry of Welfare discovered it when pursuing the Bluebirds after Gisa’s retrieval. While they have not yet been able to penetrate the gate’s defenses, their mere presence poses a threat to the Undercity and the war effort which cannot be ignored.”

“You said it yourself, they haven’t made it through,” Cat said. “What’s the problem?”

“This city cannot function under siege,” said the archpriest. “The Undercity has always depended upon secrecy as it primary means of protection. Years spent brokering deals, silencing liabilities. That careful balance is now broken. Even if they cannot tear down the gates, they will discover some way into the city, likely sooner rather than later. Now that they know about this place, there is nothing they will not do in order to breach it. It represents the last piece of a brighter past they would sooner have the populace forget.”

“Archpriest Castlieri speaks truly,” Imwe said.

“What would you have us do, then?” Aeva asked.

“We must attack, and soon,” Gisa growled, her hair flaring up and spewing smoke. “We will strike first, while we still have somewhere to strike from.”

“That’s not what we agreed!” Cat growled right back. She rose from her seat and met the goddess halfway across the room, a fraction of the size but matching in intensity. “If we’re going to have any hope of beating the MOW, we need to collapse their ranks first, so that when Couldess falls, everything else falls with him. He still has two archons working for him.”

“One of them a madman,” Stranger remarked, scratching her golden-haired cat behind the ear. “Thanks to Storm’s murderous rampages, the revolution is starting to gain traction with the common folk.”

“Yes, that was the point of all this,” Doc said. “Make the MOW crumble from within, leaving Couldess with only bad options to restaff his higher-ranking officers. But there’s still Mara. She is especially deadly, or so I hear.”

“A negligible threat,” Imwe said firmly. “Castlieri, what of our forces?”

“They are ready, my lady,” Castlieri said with a respectful inclination of the head. “A-hundred-and-three mages. Three hundred additional fighters from the Undercity itself.”

She turned to the drab woman. “And Stranger? How fares your task to unite the populace to our cause?”

“Impossible to give an accurate count, my lady,” Stranger said. “But there are thousands in Northmark willing to take up arms against the government. Once we show them the way, it will snowball.”

“And you, Bluebirds? Will you see this through? Or will you shirk your duty?”

“This isn’t about shirking anything,” Cat said. “You’re the ones abandoning the plan we laid out and agreed on. Sure, I can believe there’s thousands of people out there willing to fight, but what about the MOW? They have thousands of truthers. What will happen when revolutionaries start dropping like flies? Will they really keep up the fight?”

“And your alternative?” Gisa asked.

“Wait until we can get my brother back on his feet. We’ll take out Mara, and from there the MOW should break down further. Once they’re weak enough, we’ll hit them with all we’ve got. Same plan, just pushed back a little.”

Gisa turned to her sister. Imwe was deep in thought, sitting perfectly still.

“Stranger?” she asked after a minute of quiet contemplation. “How long do you believe it will take until the Ministry find an entryway into this place?”

Stranger shrugged. “Could be never. Could be in an hour. Word is truthers are taking to the street in several districts, questioning anyone they get ahold of about the Church. Now, we might get lucky, but in my opinion, it’s only a matter of time until they find someone who squeals. I’ve got informants out there with sensitive information. They get to any of them, it’s like giving them an all-expenses-paid ticket into the Undercity.”

“I see.” Imwe contemplated for another minute, exchanging occasional glances with Gisa. “My sister and I have come to a decision. One full day from now, in the early morning, we will strike at the traitors.”

“Wait, what?” Cat shouted. “That’s insane! For goddesses, you’re remarkably stupid.”

The debate raged on.