In camp, after the stone shepherd and the stone sheep, a natural snow storm brewing, Rask catches Alexis attention.
“That creature in the stone carvings back there, you talked about the gems it had seeming similar to ours. But it’s not Sagi? Not the six-armed creature right? But it had horns?”
“Gus felt like there was something special there too…”
Rask looks over at Gus.
“Horns, not antlers.. What do you think it was?” Rask asks Alexis
In the morning, under the hip bone of a giant creature, Rask absentmindedly addresses the whole group:
”Where and when -ever we are is where Raiden wants us, no doubt…”
“I think there are… is? Not really more than one timeline. You all know more about magic and crow-know-mancy than me, but it seems like as little as possible has changed since we saw the Dragon in Nodden Tor compared to before we used all four keys.”
He looks towards Alexis briefly,
”You’ve talked about threads weaving themselves together around Frostbite Pass… you said you saw… various versions of Hadonis and Alikimo… What if those are POSSIBLE versions not different versions?”
”’Our’ Hadonis… he saw the tear twice? He’s different from everyone else you’ve looked at, that way…”
“Somehow Time or The Dragon compensates…”
“or something…”
”No matter. We are here. Now. To stop Sasherak and Bandesing.”
As the group is leaving the mountain lion cave they shared with Sava Alexis is thinking out loud.
“I’ve been thinking more about ‘the crown that binds'”.
“Given what you’ve said about your past, Carm, it seemed reasonable that it could have been Ædelfred’s. But there are a few other crowns at play.”
“Tarkus Vell took his orders from a shadow with a broken crown sitting over its head. I’d still wager that was Bandesingh. And the bronze standard of those ice soldiers: the eye with eight points rising out of it. It reminded us of a crown, and it was carried by the orcs at Nodden-Torr.”
“But then there’s the third image. The image of a crown. A crown of black iron, hanging above an empty skull. And the skull is somewhere in this world. But there is a half formed thing standing in the void watching the crown and the ritual around it.”
“As a little aside, if Shasharak has a skull in this world, could it be something like Zrithrak’s skull or the skulls in the Drayek crypt? Is this a connection?” Alexis moves back to his talk of crowns.
“The three ‘crowns’ are not worn. Two of them hang in the air. The third rises out of an eye.”
“And then there’s the iron connection. The red iron shipments from Tarkus Vell, presumably north to Frostbite Pass. The black iron for the crown over the skull. The iron crown worn by Utiog. And then there’s the verse” he closes his eyes to recall it “Eager are princes who feed him with ore, Edged in red iron and promise of war.” Keeping his eyes closed he continues “and there’s the directive to Find the one who feeds him iron and blood.”
He opens his eyes and adjusts his hat.
“Is red iron just iron that’s been fed blood?”
Alexis shrugs and keeps moving with the group.
As the group is leaving the valley of the ice-soldiers Alexis addresses Rask.
“Since we got Zrithrak out of you, he’s still been reaching you somehow.” They all keep walking. “Is that what’s been driving the extra training?”
Alexis and the group keep moving up the valley.
Shortly after the group has scrying on Hadonis for the first time in the new timeline, and they are traveling afterwards.
Alexis asks the question to the group, not expecting an answer.
“Something doesn’t add up about Hadonis.”
“The one we left behind didn’t have time to build all of that… machinery. And he was still being hunted. The Hadonis in this timeline is dead.” He shakes his head. “But we’re not even the first group to pull the Tear out of Nodden-Torr. So what, does every group that takes the Tear get this particular Hadonis on their heels? Is it the same man every time? Are there multiple mad inventor Hadonises out there?”
He shakes his head again.
“That can’t be right.”
He keeps walking.
Further down the road to the north after the statue and pillar created by the Dragon. Alexis has already talked about his musings on the gods. He starts talking at Ethelred.
“The plaque said ‘the Mother’s Sorrow’. Two of the Tear’s powers are the Mother’s (and no other aspect named). And Alekeemo was clearly speaking for the Maiden when he mentioned the Mother to the Dark Hand.” He shakes his head. “That’s three times the Mother shows up somewhere she’s unexpected.”
They keep walking.
“Why does Shasharak need this Tear specifically? What’s special about the Mother? Or did this Tear somehow choose him, and we’re seeing the echo of that?” He grimaces slightly. “I don’t like that idea. But why did the Dragon hide this one so carefully? Why not hide multiple Tears together in the vault?”
He turns the Spider Ring over absently.
“I keep coming back to the aspects. Three aspects. What if there are three Tears per aspect? Nine total. The math doesn’t work for three tears total. But it works for 3 tears per aspect. And temples to Avv apparently had Tears all across the empire, which is hard to square with only three.” He pauses. “Though it’s possible some aspects have hidden themselves. Disappeared.”
He’s quiet for a moment.
“I’m also coming to understand the aspects better.” He shrugs slightly and continues “The Maiden is about knowing, seeing, reaching. The Mother is about ruling, shielding, empire. The Crone is about prophecy, continuity, compassion from a distance.” He glances down. “I don’t entirely know how I’m knowing these things. And I’m not certain they’re completely right. But does any of this help understand why Shasharak needs this tear specifically?” Alexis shakes his head.
They keep walking.
Since the thoughts about Ilceros and Eellos, Alexis has clearly been thinking about this same topic. He speaks to Ethelred as they continue north.
Patting his belt pouch “This Tear can make a god. Or complete the ritual to make one. Ilceros and the Dragon had it the whole time.” He glances down at his hands and the rings on them. “And in this timeline Ilceros won. Beat back a power so strong his shadow is still warping reality around us.” He looks back up at the road ahead. “Did Anashar not elevate him for that? Or did he, and humanity of this timeline just forgot, because it scattered after the Great Betrayal and took its memory with it?”
A comfortable silence.
“You Aegierians keep saying Raiden was ascended. Lifted up by Anashar.” He glances sideways at Ethelred. “Was what he did so much greater than what Ilceros did? Than what the Dragon did?” The last question lands with more weight than the others.
“Or did Ilceros get elevated, and then forgotten, and then Raiden came along and channeled whatever was left of that into something new? Is Raiden Ilceros reborn? Same warren? Different warren?”
He shakes his head slowly.
“The second league had artifacts and workings this age has never come close to matching. The hourglass. The Tears. How many of those were made specifically for achieving godhood? How many names do we not know because they succeeded and then faded with the empire? How many ended up like Shasharak, or were simply obliterated when they failed?”
He turns the Spider Ring once, almost without noticing.
“In this timeline I find it hard to imagine Anashar not uplifting Ilceros. The Dragon too, maybe. And if that happened here and not in our timeline.” He looks up briefly at the daytime sky. “Maybe that’s why the stars are different.”
He keeps walking, and his thoughts shift to a slightly different topic.
“What does it mean for a god to be tied to a place? As a Sutheroni, that concept sits uneasily with me. A god spans the world, or at least all humanity. The power is constant, from time immemorial. Anashar. Avv. Hood.” A shrug. “Although some in the Collegium have their doubts about Hood.”
He glances briefly at Gustav and Rask, then back at the road.
“But Raiden is tied to the land. And I think this same land might have been Eellos. And Ilceros was connected to Eellos. And was clearly a great power. Possibly much greater than Raiden.” He pauses. “How many other gods have come and gone? Come and failed?”
He doesn’t say anything else for a while.
Alexis falls into step beside Ethelred and Ca’armine as they leave the statue and pillar.
“The pillar.” He nods back the way they came.
“The Dragon could deal in chronomancy. The Spider was a master of the ring and could see possible futures. Between the two of them they knew the empire was ending.” He glances at the road ahead. “I have a theory they decided where to create a reliquary to best help humanity survive the trials back then and into the future.”
He looks at the landscape around them.
“They picked this corner of the empire. Gave the Tears to the dwarves, because a hundred and sixty years is nothing to a dwarf. They’d still be holding them when humanity found its way back.”
He shrugs once.
“I have a hunch this place didn’t survive by chance. It was chosen.”
They keep walking together.
The group has left the time-vault of Nodden-Torr. A few days have passed. Alexis waits until the camp has settled, then moves closer to Ethelred.
“Something’s been sitting with me since we came through.”
He keeps his voice low, not quite private.
“Raiden Ascended. Fixed point, 687 SL.” he flips through his notebook aimlessly. “Stand before that point and Ca’armine can’t reach him at all. Makes sense. The warren existed, but Raiden wasn’t in it yet. Some in the Collegium would stop right there: you attune to a region, not a person. No region, no attunement.”
He nods a couple times.
“But we came home through a sky full of possibilities. Every point of light another timeline.” He looks at the page, not really seeing it. “Which means somewhere out there there could be a timeline where Shasharak succeeded. That shadow-fiend that came for us in the hourglass room could be Shasharak or a minion of his from that alternate timeline trying to ‘correct’ all the timelines.”
He closes the book.
“If a god begins at a fixed point, does it exist in every timeline after that moment? Seems unlikely. But Raiden said we were looking at it too much like a road, when it’s a tree.” Alexis shrugs “Or it’s an agreement.” Alexis shrugs again. “Is a single Hood collecting souls from every timeline or is there a Hood for every timeline? And if so, do they know about each other? Do they compete?”
He looks at Ethelred.
“Is Shasharak already a god somewhere? And if he is, can the ‘him’ here get help from the god there?”
Alexis sets down the crystal ball and is quiet for a moment.
“Alekeemo.” He says the name and then lets out an uncertain grunt. “Utiog’s holy symbol, but he said ‘the Mother’. Slip of the tongue? I feel like it’s not.”
He looks at the group, not expecting anything, but clearly hopeful.