Chapter Text
All Those Empty Rooms
The Moon Will Sing - Coyote Stories - The Crane Wives
December 16th.
It was fitting that it should be called a Stronghold. A sturdy place of stone bricks and mortar, nestled beneath mountains whose snouts rear past the clouds. No real entrance, no real exit, nothing but tunnels of rock and gates of iron, musty moss and skittering silverfish. Its builders had protected it with earth and stone and metal, with mystery and magic. It is no wonder that such places are the ultimate end goals of adventurers from Horizon to Horizon, great people who comb the world for a mere chance to find such a place.
But sometimes, Luck is far kinder than Effort.
The hard boots of miners stomped to sudden stops as the distinct clicking of hooves and soft footsteps entered the mine for the first time. It was hard not to stare as the Regent Queen Mother Lynette Elizabeth waded into the dust and the dirt, dressed as every other miner was. The eyes of her goat-folk guards never stopped moving as their charge walked about, casting soft blue light onto the rough copper waiting to be smelted and polished into cannonry or statuary.
She suddenly tapped the shoulder of a young llama folk. “Pray tell, how much copper do you usually extract every day?”
The miner stumbled into a salute. “A-A-Around three carts full, sir Queen, on a decent day, and perhaps five on a lucky one. Coal and iron aside, of course, sir Queen.”
Lynette nodded. “Aye. A good production. And you say that iron and coal are about as well?”
“Yes, sir Queen. Not much of iron, perhaps a cart on a good day, but plenty of coal above the deepslate line.”
“Good. Very good to know. What is your name?”
“D-Daniel Connelly, sir Queen. My ma named me after the inventor.”
She smiled. “A good mother you have then. Daniel Diamond was a blessing to us all.”
With a shake of the llama-folk’s hand, the queen turned back to her guard. “Let us go beneath the deepslate line. Perhaps we may find a lush cistern or dripstone cavern maw.”
Her captain nodded. “Aye, sire.”
As the llama was turning away, he saw the queen catch his eye and give a tiny, one-fingered salute while mouthing something.
Good work.
-
Lynette didn’t really think that there were lush caves or dripstone maws in this section of the guts of the mountains, but she needed an excuse to get down there. She had a long and established habit of going into mines for inspections on short notice, and on a sporadic schedule at that, which was very convenient for tracking down leads on possible underground discoveries. Twice already she’d found old mineshafts, as well as evidence of a trial chamber. Finding a dripstone maw would be nice, and a lush cave even nicer, but underground buildings were the real treasure.
As the procession reached, and passed, the deepslate line, Lynette spotted something out of the corner of her eye. Was it tuff brick? Or a whole chunk of raw iron? Or perhaps…
She walked over to the wall and touched it, whispering to herself. “Brick. Stone brick. Not a trial chamber, not a dungeon. Can’t be a trail ruin, or a Nether Frame, or an old mineshaft. We’re far too high up for it to be an Ancient City.”
On a hunch, she reached into her miner’s trousers and pulled out one of the few trinkets she had thought to bring. It was a large, translucent pearl of shimmering teal roughly the size of her palm. Deep within its interior was a tall, dark pupil surrounded by streaks of glowing green and orange dust. Holding it up, the great Eye of Ender attempted to roll towards the stone brick. Small motes of purple light began to shed from the pearl, also attracted to the brick, causing Lynette to gasp.
“It cannot be, and yet it must be.” She whipped around to face her guards. “Get the miners down here, and get me every scientific with any knowledge of Ender things who is awake. And my daughter as well. We have found a Stronghold.”
-
When the Maiden Queen Katherine Elizabeth woke up from her power nap to an extremely harried vulture-folk messenger banging at her window, she thought that her mother discovering a Stronghold would be the biggest news of the day.
And she was right.
Lynette looked over from supervising the delicate excavation. “Ah, Katherine. It is good you are here. I know you have studied Ender matters as well as the Book of Ruins deeply and well. What dangers be there in a Stronghold?”
The Maiden, windswept from having ridden the steep minecart line down to the Stronghold, stood still for a moment as she gathered her thoughts. “Well, there is only one monster spawner, of hostile silverfish, and it is right in front of the End Frame. But the whole place is usually very dark, so beware of the typical subterranean hostiles. Aside from the Frame, there be a library of ancient tomes, so says the tales, and chests of who knows what in the corridors. I am so glad you had that Eye on you, mother.”
“And I too. Just imagine! Skytouch, in control of this Horizon’s End Frame. We will be the first Emperors in a thousand years to see the Third Dimension!”
Katherine grinned. “Yes! Though at this time, we must think of the other Emperors as well. A discovery like this is something that every Empire will want a part of, and should have a part of. Every text says that the Ancients, the Precursors, the Ones from Before, whatever title they use in whatever text they wrote… they always meant for these Frames to be used by everyone.”
Lynette nodded. “Of course. But first we must get the Void-loved thing open.”
December 17th.
It was very late, or perhaps extraordinarily early, but Lynette was still awake. Katherine had insisted that she go to bed before the moon disappeared from her window, but the Queen Mother had found a loophole: she’d drawn the drapes right before moonrise. It couldn’t disappear from her window if it never appeared in it to begin with.
A halfhearted snap called more light from her enchanter’s orb. Though much more efficient than a taper candle, she sometimes missed the warm light of open flame at times like this. She forced herself to look over the book again, her finger trailing the well-worn path through two dimensional hallways and up flat stairs.
“The library will be of great importance, of course, and who knows what we could find in the holding cells. But in the great Portal Frame Room…” She trailed off, trying to blink away the heaviness in her eyelids. “…the real treasure will be the Frame itself. I must find out more about Endstone…”
Without warning, Lynette yawned, wide and long, and a small mote of blue light slipped out. Reflex let her catch the sliver of her spirit, but that was the last straw. If she was shedding parts of her soul, it was time to go to sleep. She extinguished the orb, put paperweights down on the book, got up, and promptly collapsed onto her bed. She didn’t even bother to remove her symbol of office, the Powder Snow Torq, from her neck. Its pale blueish-white central gem gleamed unobtrusively on her throat from what tiny bits of ambient light remained in the room.
-
It had in fact been early and not late when Lynette had fallen asleep, and it was still early when she woke up. Immediately stumbling into riding boots and divided skirts made for a similar purpose, the Queen Mother nearly sprinted from her bedroom deep in the belly of Castle Snowcap to the stables that jutted out from the Wolf Mount’s slopes. Liquid Lapis, a beautiful Icecap, took her down the mountain with long strides, seemingly sensing his rider’s urgency.
Even at speed, it took nearly twenty minutes of hard riding before Lynette reached the entrance of the Galvez and Sons Copper Mine. The company in question had been thoroughly reimbursed for the interruption to their operations, and presently no miner without clearance walked among the metal-bearing rock. The guards on duty, most of them winged bat-folk who could send a message zipping through the sky at speeds that would break a vulture-folk’s neck, saluted their Queen Mother as she approached.
She turned to the senior captain. “What of progress, good sir?”
“Sir Queen, I do not understand half the words the scientifics say, but they are happy and anxious and quick-footed always. Some small rabbit was the most recent to run off, harping about needing more lamps in the dark.”
“If it is more light they want, then it is more light they shall have. Send a missive to the Sang and Locksmith company to requisition some three stacks of redstone lights.”
The captain saluted. “Yes, sir Queen!”
As they about-faced to send a courier, Lynette tied up Liquid Lapis at the nearest post and descended into the mine. She passed through the clean, well-lit and metal-stripped upper layer quickly, and soon realized exactly what that rabbit wanted more lamps. It was dark in the bowels of the mine, that damp sort of dark that comes with being far from the sun. The torches along the walls seemed to shrink back the more she looked at them, as if ashamed to be disrupting the misty atmosphere.
After descending many flights worth of rough-hewn stairs, Lynette suddenly found herself in a bustling clump of scientifics and academics. Most wore long coats, out of tradition more likely than for protection, and moved in such a way that their clothing was constantly jumping and dancing. It seemed the majority were rabbit-folk, ears tall and feet thumping, but the long tails of foxes and clacking of goat’s hooves made clear that this was a truly all-hands-on-deck situation.
Dr. Luna waved the queen down. “Sir! Sir! Thank the Void you’re here! We’ve found the library!”
If Lynette could move her ears, she would’ve. “Already? How big is it?”
“The explorers got driven away by cave spiders, so they couldn’t tell.”
The queen put her hands on her hips. “Well then, I brought my war scythe for a reason. Get me the explorers who went in there first, a lantern, and an fae caster. We’re finding that Portal Frame.”
-
Matthew tapped his spear against the wall. “Yup. It’s the next wall over. Be ready. The spiders are there in numbers. Wait…”
Lucas kicked the door in as the other fox-folk nodded. “UP BLADES! UP CLAWS!”
With cries for good fortune, the explorers thundered into the library. Ancient shelves complained in creaks and cracks with as wood that had rotted without water threatened to give way. They combined with the sudden and fearful squeaks of cave spiders as the redstone torches brought light into a room that hadn’t seen itself in who knows how long. Sweeping theirs about, April caught sight of books with spines embossed in gold with the strange glyphs of the ancients. Straining to read in the dim red light, they made out the words Metallurgy and Magic: the Art o—
“HEADS UP APRIL!”
Reflexively, the goat-folk hefted their axe and slashed blindly, sending arachnid legs and webs scattering across the room. The other explorers were facing more cave spiders, shrill little things bearing fangs dripping with poison. Though they made quick work of the things, the sounds of tiny feet on stone brick promised more to come.
The Queen Mother, her dress splattered with the purplish blood of the spiders, sighed. “C’mon now. If that’s the worst we’re gonna face, this Stronghold is far safer than Castle Snowcap.”
Shrugging off the cobwebs, the former Explorer-in-Command Xander saluted. “Yes, sir Queen. Let’s blades and torches, all. Up blades and torches and hearts!”
”UP BLADESI UP TORCHES! UP HEARTS!”
-
Theo quietly tapped the ground with the butt of his spear. “Don’t feel anything odd… wait. Fae magic is here. Silverfish are in these stones. Don’t break anything, or disturb anything already broken, or we’ll be swarmed.”
Lynette quickly drew her hand away from the rubble near a chest. “Good to know.”
Xander smiled sheepishly. “Well… let’s just find the Portal Frame, aye, sir?”
“Yes, yes. Let’s see…” Lynette waved for Quinn. “Some light? Thank you. We should be in the maze of corridors now, so it’s mostly trial and error. We’re going to do this methodically and carefully. No splitting up, no wandering off, and absolutely no damaging the structure.”
The explorers snapped to attention. “Aye aye, sir!”
Lynette raised her war scythe. “And once more into the dark, good seekers, once more into the dark! To find the Frame most precious and teal, that might be our doorway forward!”
“Forward!”
And with the shouts, the seekers rushed forth, their hearts beating ‘longside up blades and torches, forward into the dark, and forward into the future.
December 18th.
“Mother? Mother!” Katherine cried out as she ran, “Mother, I have unlocked it!”
The other queen looked up from under the haze of magic surrounding her. “Oh, good! Which one? The metallurgy? The textiles?”
“No and no. The atlas! The Grand Atlas of the Third Dimension!” She triumphantly held up the massive book, its cover gleaming in the midday light. The strange compass design and ancient glyphs weren’t the only things that marked it as special; the whole thing glowed with a purple and otherworldly light all its own.
Lynette gasped. “A real wayfinder’s book! I do believe that it may be unique in all of Skytouch, ever since the last Great Librarian took the Almanac of the Eclipse… what have you been able to read in it?”
Katherine set the book down and sighed. “Not much, unfortunately. Even being able to read the glyphs isn’t enough, since it seems the ancients used a measurement system all their own. I know not how to interpret the units of ‘blocks’ and ‘strides’ and such, let alone how they calculate the numbers labeled coordinates. But it is clear, even to me, that the End is a mostly empty place, save for the island on which the Dragon lives, and something called the Halo that surrounds it at a great distance.”
“Well then, we’d best keep this little thing a secret. Don’t want the Aurorans invading us to get it, aye?”
“Of course, of course. But we must tell the other Empires of the Stronghold some time soon! We’ve found the Portal Frame, we have Eyes of Ender, and we can at least guess as to what is on the other side. There’s no use in letting some spy steal all the glory.”
“I guess so,” Lynette said with a chuckle, “but let’s make them wait a little bit. Give the scientifics some time to stare in wonderment at the Frame and produce more Eyes. Can’t hurt.”
December 19th.
“What. In the name of the Three Dimensions is going on!”
Montgomery Major hung his head over the letter. Again. “Of course. Of course it’s Lynette that found it. Of course flaming Skytouch holds the Stronghold of the Second Horizon. Void’s name. At least she had the decency to call the flaming Summit in Paradise Mountain. Ugh.”
The old Emperor of Solis sat muttering for a few seconds longer before hoisting himself out of his desk chair. He took a moment to fix the placement of the Gilded Crown on his head and flick away a few specks of sand from his eyes before leaving his study. The guards immediately snapped to attention the moment his hand touched the curtain.
Montgomery turned to one of them. “Eden, would you mind getting Adrienne and Scott? The letter wasn’t the best news, as you heard, but it is news, and they must know it.”
The vulture-folk saluted. “Aye, sir! Shall they meet you in the gardens, by the sand fountain?”
“Yes. Thanks.”
As she strutted off, he turned to the other guard. “Stick with me, will you, Lars? It’s going to be a long day.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Thanks.”
The Emperor took a second to glance out the tinted window into Solis. Despite the blurry and dark view, he knew exactly what was on the other side. Three clusters of buttes, two lone spires, an arch, a mesa, the edge of the River Valor, and a cloudless sky. Five pyramids, two of them great ziggurats and the other three step-structures, fifty-seven cliff side houses, and a line of flags that mark the only reliable path through the dunes. Montgomery sighed.
Lars leaned in close enough to bump his nose against the glass. “Anything new, sir?”
“Yes. It’s out there. But I can’t see it.”
-
Scott dipped his hand into the sand fountain again, feeling the grains slide smoothly over his bandages. With a flick of his wrist, some of the sand shot up and settled into the shape of a leafless tree. Squinting with his bad eye, the Crown Heir remade the sand gently into the shape of a snake and settled it around his mother’s shoulders.
Adrienne smiled thinly, the only smile she had, and flicked the snake into a cloud of dust. “Not now, dear. You know you’re going to damage the plumbing in the fountain.”
“Alright. I wonder what’s taking Dad so long…” He straightened from leaning over the basin and sat down next to his mother. “D’you think it has something to do with the river flood being late?”
Two sets of footsteps suddenly shuffled out of the sand-filled pathways. “No, but that is still on my mind. It’s news from another Empire that’s got me.”
Lars saluted and took a spot near the gate as Montgomery came into the courtyard. He was not an especially old man, but the world had used him hard. A lined face framed by blond hair gone mostly white and sun-bleached and the heavy gleam of the Gilded Crown was his countenance, but unlike his wife, the eldest Major’s eyes were clear and pure amber, shining in contrast to the rough and pockmarked skin.
The Emperor embraced his family tightly. “Hi. Sorry it took so long.”
Adrienne smiled and pecked his cheek. “No worries. I’m guessing another Emperor has done something?”
“Yeah,” Monty sighed, “yeah. C’mon, let’s sit down. It’s a bit of a rockslide, really. Lynette Elizabeth has found the Stronghold.”
Scott’s jaw fell. “What. What? Dragon’s name, what?!?”
“Yes. It’s amazing, and terrifying. The Queen Mother’s calling a Summit, of course, in Paradise. We’re all going. It’ll be a quick journey up the Valor and across the Firmament Grassland. Pack the best clothes you can find, quickly and well. Lynette will be… proud, to say the least. We must be proud too.”
-
Across the unflooded River Valor, through the endless thick jungle of the Emerald Lands, and at the top of the Imperial Tower in the capital city Skyscraper, the Emperor Byte Rifra was also hanging his head over a letter. One clawed foot tapped a slow rhythm on the metal floor, an echo that put his guards on edge. His two guards shared nervous looks as the tapping stopped, replaced by quick footsteps.
The Emperor suddenly threw the sliding door open. “Come with me. Maya, send word for seven good long-distance Mesa Stripes that can carry medium cargo and a rider each. Rahul, send word to pack enough for a delegation of ten, including my son and nephews. We will take turns on the horses on the way to Paradise. A summit has been called, and we must respond.”
-
Up past the daunting cliffs of the Dragon’s Way Fjord, over the reaching tips of eternal icebergs, and into Old Frostcant, was a great clamor that surrounded the young Duke Fwhip as he called for quiet in the reception hall.
“Calm, calm, please! Nothing will get done if you all talk at once!“ He waved his sheathed sword, the symbol of the budding pseudo-republic, high above the heads of the crowd. ”I have already made my mind up, and I am going to the Summit with or without you representatives. But your minds must be made within the hour, since it takes two days’ hard travel to get to Paradise. What say you?”
The forty-something people shared uneasy glances and quick hand-signs before the Speaker cleared her throat and pushed to the front of the crowd. “Good Sir Duke, I should think that I alone should accompany you, to ease the travel. Us two together shall make a good representation for the people, yea?”
Fwhip nodded. “Aye. Let’s get on, then.”