One week later (Friday, June 24, 2022) West 4th Street Subway; Greenwich Village, New York, United States

Eleanor surreptitiously rubbed at her chest. It was early in the morning, in the subway tunnel where it had all started.

Except this time, she was wearing full tactical gear, she had her rifle, her swordstaff, the Dagger of Veils (which she still didn’t know what it did), and, most importantly an army of Aqrabuamelu with her.

She stared at the small tunnel which ended neatly in a brick wall. Her eyes began to glow, and she could feel the gateway, still anchored here. Just as Kothin had said.

The knot was different though. She traced the extradimensional paths it took, it was, for lack of a better word, “pulled tight” and knotted. It took her a bit but she managed to find a similar way to open the knot.

There was a light sheen of sweat when she was done. Her eyes were glowing, lighting up the hall as the gate opened.

Into a sunny meadow, one filled with that same intensity of reality that signified the presence of magic. But also not at all like the tunnel she had entered before. And, in the far distance, was the same castle, no longer in disrepair, but standing tall and proud, pennants flapping in the breeze from minarets.

Adrahasis stepped through the portal with a selected squad and they began securing the perimeter while Adra began the testing. First, he pulled out a butane lighter and tried to light it. After a few clicks, it lit, but the flame was weak, almost lazy. Another soldier took out thermal goggles and began scanning, eventually giving the all clear.

Another test, a silenced sidearm. It would still make quite a bit of noise, but it needed to be done. He pointed to the ground to the side and pulled the trigger. Nothing. He pulled his regular sidearm and pointed it down. Nothing, the silence was thick enough they could hear the click of the striker. It was the same scenario as the Nuwa world, firearms weren’t going to work.

Next, a grenade. He pulled the pin and threw it. And waited. A second grenade, nothing.

Zaidu barked a command and the soldiers in the tunnel quickly divested themselves of firearms, grenades, and other incendiary devices. Instead, it was pepper spray, modern hunting bows, tasers, and a couple of experimental coil guns with large heavy backpacks.

That did not stop them from setting up a machine gun nest in the tunnel pointing into the portal. Firing from outside through the portal should work. Two snipers on each side of the machine gun also took position. One was Tauthe, who was getting quite round as her pregnancy progressed.

Another squad went through, bows in half-drawn positions. Zaidu, Arcsa, and Ella’s squad was next. They shoved Kothin through, his hands bound. Then quickly went through and took covered positions.

The fourth squad was coming through. Ella watched them out of the corner of her eye. But when the hammer fell, she only had an instance before it was too late. There was sudden pressure on the gate, and suddenly collapsed. A soldier was midway through the gate, and she was cut cleanly along her coronal plane, in a sickening splash of blood and guts and half a body’s worth of pieces fell to the ground.

“Contact, magical” Ella yelled, “hold cover.” Her eyes flared under her tactical mask as she scanned.

She spoke under her breath to Zaidu and Arcsa next to her, “He shut the gate.” No need to specify who. “I don’t even feel it behind us anymore. No magical presence near, although the castle is glowing with it.” She kept looking and suddenly saw something, “There” she pointed.

A lone arrow was arcing up into the sky and landed in the clearing ahead of them. Magical lights began to coelesce around where it had landed and a translucent image of the Emperor began to form. He stood there, not the old decrepit figure that she had seen before, but a hale and hearty figure standing with his arms clasped in front of him. She found herself holding her breath.

“Welcome, Crown Princess. And the Aqrabuamelu, it has been far longer since we have seen one another. Kneel and be welcomed back into the fold.”

Nobody moved. The figure was staring right at Ella. She flared her eyes bright, shaking off the gentle urge to obey in a wide area around her and stood up. Zaidu hissed and grabbed to pull her down, but Ella shook him loose, “We may as well talk. He knows exactly where we are…”

“Hello Ekerri. I don’t think we will be kneeling to you today. Or ever again,” Arcsa spoke first, standing next to her, his head unbowed, and smiling pleasantly as if welcoming a dear friend.

The Emperor’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Arcsa. “I sensed my control over you slipping, but I am your God, Utu-on-Earth. You will obey me.”

“No more. Your prophecy was fulfilled. We went into hell… We survived. Magic disappeared and was brought again by Blessed Inanna. And not only that, she had our devotion, our programmed need to obey… And despite that,” and at this, his voice was jubilant and he was yelling in joy, “she set us free!”

Ella saw magic suddenly strike out from the castle, arcing high and striking Arcsa, but it was that of compulsion, the same bindings that had tied the Aqrabuamelu to Ekerri so long ago. And they found no purchase, Ella had cut off the magic, severing the connection. But she had not removed the pieces, they were still wedged in there denying an entry point for new control magic of the same sort.

The Emperors face remained impassive. He turned to Ella. “When I set you out in the world, I had no idea you would survive so long. My concern was that you would die too soon to expose my enemies. But now you even threaten me. Life is full of surprises even now. When I have killed you, I think your disgusting species will need to be put back into place.” The Emperor was almost musing to himself. There was no rancor in his voice, just thought.

He focused back onto Ella, “Of course you wouldn’t have survived without help. That magic you possess, it does not come free. The Ascendants continue to play their games.”

Ella, well trained by Zaidu by this point, still kept her eyes searchin, wary of ambush.

“I’d free us all of these games. All it will cost you is one life, yours, and all of us could be free.”

“You just said you were going to wipe out humans.”

“I did. Didn’t I? But it won’t happen til long after you and your loved ones are dead of old age. And, to be honest, humans are doing quite a good job of doing it to themselves.” The Emperor’s tone was amused. But Ella couldn’t deny what he said either.

Why was she here? She had been attacked and set up to take a fall and she had followed a path that led her to this moment, where she had killed thousands, where she was leading an army into strange new worlds to wage war.

“Is there no other way than conflict?” Ella could feel Jade’s earlier admonishments coursing through her. Why did they have to be here? “Let me be an intermediary, your ambassador to the world and take an official place within the existing framework.”

“Girl… You know nothing. Your world is just mist, to be blown away by the gale that is true power. Even if you do not destroy yourselves, others can and will when you become inconvenient.”

“The Ascendants…” Ella said.

“Well them, plus several others I have locked away over the millenia. Some of them are rather powerful and rather angry. And why should I keep them locked up if I am not in power? What do I care?”

“Is there no conception of yourself that is not that of an autarch?” Ella asked desperately.

And the Emperor looked at her with strangely kind eyes, “I might turn it around on you. You could walk away, leave it to someone else to oppose me. Instead you took up this mantle, not because you thought you were special, but because you are. You, like me, recognize your greatness and capability and would not leave what needs to be done to anyone else.”

And Ella recognized the truth in that statement. She was smart. She was driven. But there was a difference, “I choose to use my gifts to save others. Whereas you seem to be only using it to gather power.”

He laughed, and it was full and boisterous, “Only a matter of degree. I seek to remove threats to this world also. If only to preserve myself. If the outcomes are the same, does motive matter?”

They regarded one another silently after that. Ella, for once in her life, struggled to articulate the difference. She even wondered if she was right.

Arcsa came to the rescue, “Old orc… arguing ends justify the means was always your excuse. Attack if you are going to attack, but otherwise stop wasting our time.”

The ghostly figure vanished, and the sunny skies turned dark. Wind began blowing and hail fell from the sky.