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“Yep, this is the place,” Joe said as they stepped across the boundary marked by the outer ring of standing stones onto the hard surface of the circle. “Not something I’m likely to forget.”
“Well, I’m not sure what I was expecting,” Billie said frankly, scratching her head and peering around, “but now we’re here, I’m pretty sure I expected more of it.”
The center of the Golden Sea was a broad disc of completely unadorned stone, with no markings of any kind, encircling a central pit from which glowed an intense white light. While it lit up the horizon from a distance, up close it was not painful to look at, likely due to some protective magic in effect; they could still see occasional flickers of lightning directly above, but these were silent and did not strike the ground. A ring of similarly unmarked stone columns circled the broad platform from outside, with a second smaller ring around the edges of the shaft of light. All the stonework looked faintly eroded, its edges being rounded in an uneven pattern that left hints of their original sharpness in places, but altogether it didn’t appear to be even as old as the Elder Wars. Stonework a lot less venerable than eight thousand years was usually in much worse repair.
Underwhelming as it might be in style, at least the place was impressive in size. The whole of Sarasio could have been laid out within the outer circle, and the central pit containing the huge portal was big enough for an Imperial zeppelin to fly into, assuming it went nose-first.
It was eerily silent, for the sheer quantity of magic that had to be involved in that portal. Divine and arcane magic, at least, tended to produce distinctive ringing and buzzing noises, respectively; there was nothing like that here, just the faint whisper of wind over the prairie. A steady sense of pressure in the air, like the weight of a sudden storm that hadn’t yet begun to drop rain, was the only indication that there was more to the portal’s glow than light.
In that quiet, the crack was audible as Weaver crushed the beetle he’d picked up in the tallgrass, raising his hand to whisper to the slain insect. The rest turned to watch; he continued forward till he stood some yards ahead, almost halfway to the edge of the pit itself, and stopped. After listening in silence for a full minute, the bard turned back to face them, his expression frustrated.
“Well, now what? Yngrid can’t use that portal, she says it works exactly the same on her plane as for us. It goes somewhere, which isn’t where she wants to be. Joe?”
“I dunno what to tell you,” Joe replied, shaking his head. “When I was here with Jenny, she jumped in, but she was obviously a different kind of creature, trying to achieve a different goal. Sorry, Weaver, I’ve got no idea how any of this works. I thought you only needed me to get here.”
“That’s what the instructions said,” Weaver growled, turning away.
“Reckon the ol’ Bishop saw a chance to get rid of us?” Billie offered.
“I can’t see it,” Joe said immediately.
“I agree,” Mary added. “We are familiar with Darling’s flaws; it seems unlike him to renege on our deal, or try to do away with us. Especially in such a roundabout manner. The oracular sources of his information are another matter, though. Guiding spirits may grow recalcitrant if one tries to insist on their compliance.”
“Well, now what, then?!” Weaver exclaimed, throwing his arms wide in sheer frustration.
“Now, I might be mistaken,” McGraw began.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Weaver deadpanned.
“Just so.” Grinning, the old man tipped his hat to him. “Y’all may not have cottoned onto this, as most of our group outings begin and end with shootin’ at somebody, but I’m a portal mage by specialization. Trained in teleportation in my misspent youth on the reckoning that that’s where the money was. And I’m here to tell you, most kinds o’ portals ain’t like hellgates. A stable rift only connects two points across dimensions, in the same physical spot. This critter here appears to be at the center of the Golden Sea, I’d lay odds metaphysically as well as literally. With the Sea bein’ so notoriously shifty itself, not to mention known to have a mind of its own…” He turned in a slow circle studying the features of the quiet stone circle. “There’s gotta be somebody in charge, here.”
“Did you encounter anyone on your last visit, Joseph?” Mary asked.
He shook his head. “Nobody I didn’t bring with me. Me, Jenny, what was left of the Imps chasing us. It was all exactly like this. However, I didn’t know then what I know now. Considerin’ who had to’ve set this up in the first place…” Joe trailed off, then squared his shoulders and raised his voice. “Hey, Avatar!”
Dead quiet answered.
“I have been in a number of ruins of the Elder Gods over the years,” Mary said after a pause. “They all have a very distinctive aesthetic. Glossy metal surfaces, blinking lights in those which still have power. This looks nothing like their work. I would not assume it to be the product of the same culture.”
“Well, who else?” he asked, shrugging. “You don’t think the Pantheon did this, surely. Why in the world would they?”
“She’s not wrong, though,” Billie added. “Seen a few o’ those ol’ relics meself, Joe. Also, there’s the compelling fact that nobody’s answering you.”
“Well, does anyone else have an idea?” Weaver asked in a strained tone.
Joe chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, frowning. “…yeah. Avatar! The last command of your creator, Tarthriss, was to be of service to humanity. Well, we’re a patch o’ humanity, an’ we’re here. We need your help.”
Silence.
“Please,” he added.
“Nobody’s home, Joe,” said Billie. “Maybe if—”
“Do you imagine, Joseph Percival Jenkins, that I have spent the last eight thousand years with my thumb up my butt, eating bonbons and catching up on reruns?”
All of them whirled in alarm to confront the figure which had just materialized before them. He was a glowing and transparent purple man, apparently human, bald and clad in an odd, skin-tight garment. At least seven feet tall, he hovered off the ground in a posture that would have been intimidating even had he not been scowling down at them with his arms folded.
“Try to imagine,” the purple man snapped, “presiding over an unstable dimensional vortex in a state of constant use for which it was not designed, having to actively manage its condition to avoid creating any of the numerous catastrophes which could result from it veering completely out of control. Now add to that, just for funsies, having to counter the self-serving, short-sighed manipulations of centaur infernomancers on this plane and reckless demons on another who see a potential planet-devouring black hole in the making and have no thought but to poke at it so they can ride the translocation waves it puts out when interfered with. And now, you show up and have the gall to lecture me about service? Let me tell you all, since you’re here: for every moment that has gone by in the last eight millennia that this planet has not been turned inside out or ripped entirely off its axis, you are welcome!”
They all stared up at him in shock for a moment.
The McGraw removed his hat and bowed. “Well, sir, I admit I had no idea you were here in this situation. I thank you most sincerely for your service.”
“Aye, yer a good lad!” Billie chimed in exuberantly. “An’ hey! Now we’ve been ‘ere, we can visit again, aye? Ain’t those the rules? How’s about I fetch ye a little somethin’ ta make this place a mite more comfortable, eh? You could use a few bits an’ bobs to liven it up, what’s yer pleasure?”
“I don’t know that any material gifts would be of use to you, Avatar,” Mary added, also bowing, “but nonetheless, I add my gratitude for your important work. If I may ease your burden in any way, please ask. I should be glad to assist.”
“Oh. Well.” Amazingly, the ancient AI looked both surprised and rather mollified. “That is thoughtful of you, but the thought will have to suffice. I have no needs, and there is nothing you can do to assist in my task here. Any intervention would only make it harder.”
“Then I shall refrain,” Mary replied, nodding gravely. “But should circumstances change, the offer stands.”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta just take a moment an’ deal with the sheer bloody revelation, here,” Billie added. “This upends me whole world, it does. Here I’m just truckin’ along on a good old-fashioned adventure, right as rain, and all of a sudden I find out…” She turned to Joe, grinning insanely. “Percival?”
Joe glanced at the gnome, but knew better than to give her a reaction. “Pardon me for pointin’ it out, Avatar, but for somebody livin’ in the literal middle of nowhere, you’re pretty well-informed.”
“Magic, as the saying goes, is data processing,” the Avatar replied. “The nature of custodianship over the vortex requires access to all available data in order to correct its frequent upheavals. I will admit, work aside, I have not been bored out here. Watching the rise and evolution of civilizations on this world in the aftermath of the Infinite Order’s downfall has been rather gratifying. I have sufficient processing power to keep tabs on the world, so to speak, without neglecting my duty. It is not an imposition to talk to you, either.”
“And I greatly appreciate that,” said Weaver, stepping forward. “I won’t sugar-coat it: I have to ask you for a favor. And from how you describe this portal, it sounds like it’s exactly the thing you don’t like doing.”
“Yes, your valkyrie friend,” the Avatar said, scowling again. “It should be possible to temporarily modify the dimensional instability of the vortex to enable her transition to the material plane. Difficulty aside, I am not convinced that’s a wise idea, Damian ‘Gravestone’ Weaver. Has it occurred to you that those creatures were removed to the dimensional insulation layer for good and specific reason?”
Weaver tensed, clearly controlling his instinctive response, and Joe hastily butted in before that discussion could go south.
“Scuze me for interruptin’, but you mentioned this portal’s not bein’ used for its intended purpose. If you don’t mind my askin’, what exactly is it doin’? And how’s that different from the original design?”
“The vortex,” the Avatar said more calmly, turning back to him, “was originally the Infinite Order’s contingency plan, in case their activities on this planet were to render it uninhabitable. It is an open connection across space, time, and dimensions, three factors which are the reason it has to be so large and powerful.”
“Why all three o’ those?” Billie asked. “Where’s it go?”
“To the planet from which they originally came, to an alternate timeline maximally similar to their own, and to a period sufficiently in the past that the world’s inhabitants would be sophisticated enough that the Order would not need to build an entire infrastructure from the ground up but not so advanced that they could have resisted conquest. At least, that was the stated rationale, and while it is factually correct I suspect it is not a coincidence that this was the period in which most of their favorite mythologies were being actively written. If they had to abandon this world, they were going to take over a primitive alternate version of their world of origin.”
“What a bunch o’ sleazy, chickenshit arseholes,” Billie scoffed.
“Quite,” agreed the Avatar. “As for its current use, it is powered on and open, neither of which was intended. This portal is fundamentally too powerful to be stable for a period of more than an hour. It has been running for approximately eight millennia. The physical instability of the entire surrounding region of the continent is only the most obvious effect of this.”
“Most obvious?” McGraw asked warily.
“There is an active dimensional rift to another world open,” the Avatar explained. “That world has mass-broadcasting technology, and this one has transcension fields. A constant flow of data streams across the rift, where it is absorbed by the ambient magic of this world and interacts at a very low level with every consciousness which exists here.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Um,” Joe said at last, hesitantly, “Sorry if this sounds obtuse, but…what, exactly, does that…do?”
“In practical terms? It is too diffuse to have a discernible impact on any individual, even those most powerfully connected to transcension fields. The effects are only perceptible in aggregate, over the very long term. For example, the natural evolution of languages is progressive, not cyclical as it is on this world. They tend inherently to drift and evolve, but thanks to the influence of this portal upon the magic of this world, they continue to evolve back into languages being streamed through it. Those are the types of influences it has: long-term cultural effects. Culture is more complex and the parallels are weaker, but many extant societies on this planet resemble nations from the old world of this period to a greater degree than coincidence could account for.”
“And this,” Weaver whispered, “this is what those oracles told me to come here and toss Yngrid through. I…think you were right, Mary. Darling must’ve pissed them off by asking too hard. This is a trap.”
“I realized it was I who raised the possibility, Weaver, but I am far from certain of that,” she said, giving him an encouraging smile before turning back to the projected form of the AI. “If I might trouble you to ask, Avatar: you said the vortex could be modified to allow passage to here from the space between. Would that be safe for a valkyrie to cross?”
“Physical access to the dimensional insulation layer is possible through a variety of means, as you well know,” the Avatar replied with a wry twist of his mouth. “At issue is that the valkyries were fixed there by Rauzon the Prime; their substance is altered such that they cannot exist outside it. I am aware of only one valkyrie being pulled back across and not destroyed, and that only because she was changed almost beyond recognition in the process. The applicability of this portal to your problem, Mr. Weaver and Yngrid, is that it is designed to facilitate the transition between a place which has active transcension fields and one which does not, for ascended beings dependent upon those fields for their survival. A creative application of that apparatus could reverse Rauzon’s changes to a valkyrie and re-align her to this plane rather than the insulation layer. As for how safe it is: this is a machine, of incalculable enormity, complexity, and power, being operated by the most skilled user possible. I am confident I could do this without harming Yngrid, but such a task simply cannot be conceived without risk. The fundamental question remains: why would I do such a thing?”
Weaver inhaled slowly and deeply under the Avatar’s pointed stare. The others just watched him in silence, sensing this was no time to interfere.
“The truth is,” the bard said at last, raising his chin to stare the Avatar in the eye, “I have no great justification for this. I’m here, disrupting your routine and asking you to monkey around with an apparatus you were charged with keeping stable, and I won’t dress that up as anything other than what it is. All I have to say in support of my request is that… That I love her. And that she does not deserve to be imprisoned there, just for being what she is. No one deserves that. So here we are, asking for your help, because you’re the only one who can help us.” Weaver closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again, and to the astonishment of his companions, sank down to one knee. “Please. Help us.”
“It is not that I am unsympathetic, you two. In fact…” Surprisingly, the AI’s expression melted into a wistful smile. “I suppose there is no harm in admitting it: I do enjoy a star-crossed romance. Perusing the literature being produced by your societies has been one of my greatest comforts. However… As cruel as Rauzon and the Order could be, their exile of the valkyries was not a pointless act. Those entities are dangerous and destructive. Bringing Yngrid back to this plane would mean introducing an enormous hazard to it.”
“She is a person with agency,” Weaver insisted quietly. “A kind, funny, warm person who can’t help being what she is, and has no desire to kill frivolously no matter how easy it is for her. She’s not a typhoon, or a disease, or a bomb.”
“All of which was true of her and all her sisters at their first exile, Weaver. What has changed?”
Weaver hesitated, opening his mouth, but seemingly found no answer.
“Uh, scuze me?” Joe interjected, removing his hat. “Actually…I think you’ll find some very important things have changed, just maybe not with Yngrid and the other valkyries.”
The Avatar raised one eyebrow. “Oh?”
“The Infinite Order is gone,” Joe said, politely but firmly. “Long gone. If I’m not mistaken, the current situation of the valkyries is under the authority of Vidius, to whom you don’t answer and owe nothing. We’re all extremely grateful for your efforts here in keepin’ this thing stable, as we’ve said. End o’ the day, though, only responsibility you have is to help humanity, like Tarthriss ordered.” He turned his head and nodded to Weaver. “He’s part o’ humanity. An’ I don’t care what anybody says, so’s Yngrid. They’re… We are askin’ for your help.”
“Nobody in all the world ain’t dangerous,” McGraw added, nodding for emphasis. “I reckon some, or most, of those here could raise about as much hell as Yngrid, if we took a notion to. People just gotta make their choices an’ then be held accountable for the consequences, and for that to matter, they’ve gotta have the freedom to do so. Stuffin’ somebody in a hellish netherworld where the sky’s made o’ monsters because they o’ what they might do ain’t logical any more’n it’s compassionate. That was an act o’ sheer lazy cowardice.”
“Aye, that’s a point, too,” Billie agreed. “Think on it: yer not the one who put the reapers where they are, but if you got the opportunity t’bring one home and ye don’t…well, then, you kinda are, ain’cha?”
“You are incorrect on one point,” the Avatar said quietly.
They all glanced around at each other in uneasy silence.
“I do owe something to Vidius,” the AI mused, turning his transparent head to gaze at the glowing vortex itself. “He is in large part responsible for the state of this thing, and my situation here. You know, now that it’s put to me in those terms, I find myself powerfully disinclined to uphold cruel vanity projects of Rauzon, Vidius, or any other ascended being who hasn’t troubled to clean up after their own depredations. Well, then.” He turned back to Weaver with a smile. “I shall consider myself persuaded.”
The bard swallowed heavily. “I… Thank you. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Correct,” the AI agreed. “Therefore, do not strain yourself trying; the sentiment is received and accepted. Now, this sensation may be uncomfortable, but I assure you it is quite harmless. I am aligning dimensional frequencies. One moment, please, Yngrid; I will inform you when it is safe to approach the vortex.”
Joe almost stumbled at the sudden vertigo; the very air around them seemed to change in tint, as if all color faded to leave sepia and gray. His eyes and his other senses were telling him different things about what he was experiencing. It was, in fact, a familiar sensation.
“Oy, this rings a bell,” Billie muttered, echoing his thoughts. “Where’ve I ‘ad t’sit through somethin’ like this before?”
“Back when we fought Khadizroth the first time, remember?” said McGraw. “It’s a thinning of the barriers between dimensions. He sensed Yngrid, thought Weaver was holding her against her will, and tried to bring her closer to this plane.”
“Oh, aye, I remember that!” Billie said, grinning broadly. “She carved ‘is green arse like a solstice goose. Hah, thanks fer remindin’ me, I been meanin’ to shake Spooky’s ‘and fer that bit o’ work.”
“I guess you’ll get the chance soon,” Joe murmured.
“Alignment complete,” the Avatar stated. “You may want to step back, Mr. Weaver, the focus of the effect is located at the center of the portal. Yngrid, do not under any circumstances pass through the event horizon. It should not have an attractive effect, but I advise against coming too close to it anyway. Please take flight and proceed directly through the aligned space above the vortex, then effect a landing upon the platform no less than ten meters from the edge. Be prepared; I must release the alignment as soon as you are clear or there will begin to be side effects.”
Weaver backed up as he directed, keeping his eyes fixed upon the space above the glowing pit. The rest of the group also retreated to make room, watching for the valkyrie’s appearance. There was no extra sign of any dimensional aperture, only the intense glow of the portal itself and the eerie distorted effect of the Avatar’s dimensional alignment.
Then, quite suddenly, she appeared.
The shape of black wings coalesced like smoke out of nowhere, approaching the ground in a dive from right across the pit. When they had seen Yngrid previously in the space between, she had been a blurry shape as if viewed underwater, and that was exactly how she appeared even as she sharpened out of seeming nothingness. But she sharpened further, until she was as plainly seen as any of them. The speed of it was as rapid as her descent, as if she was passing out of the netherworld exactly as she passed through the air. It was also too quick for any of them to get a good look at the process, except perhaps for Mary.
Evidently plunging into the confusingly almost-merged space around them was even more disorienting than standing in it. She hit the ground and stumbled, staggering forward and wheeling her arms and black wings both for balance. This proved counterproductive, as she managed to tangle the long haft of her scythe in her own feet and pitch violently on a course that would have smashed her face-first into the stone floor had Weaver not caught her.
The bard stepped forward adroitly, despite the dimensional effect muddling all their senses, and the valkyrie landed right in his arms. Her scythe clattered to the ground beside them, forgotten.
Yngrid was a tall woman with a thin build, wave hair of medium blonde, and a long, narrow face surmounted by a high-bridged nose. Her wings were enormous, feathered as inky black as a raven’s, and she wore a dress that seemed haphazardly stitched together from mismatched odds and ends of cloth and erratic pieces of rusty mail armor.
She and Weaver held each other, their eyes locked from inches apart, gazing at one another in disbelief, and growing, incredulous delight.
Then Mary gently nudged Joe’s arm. He looked over to catch her significant glance, then averted his eyes, feeling his face color. Billie actually grunted in displeasure at being nudged by McGraw’s staff, but the old wizard picked her bodily up and turned them both around. The whole group faced the other way, giving the just-united couple a moment of privacy.
“Negating alignment,” the Avatar announced, and for a machine intelligence the fond satisfaction in his voice was remarkably plain to hear; it was the tone of a romantic soul who had just played a role in linking up a pair of star-crossed lovers. Actually, Joe reflected, he sounded more like a bard in that moment than Weaver ever had.
He suited his words with action, at any rate, and the world stabilized around them as the alignment receded.
“So,” Billie muttered, “not ta be insensitive or nothin’, but we’re still out ‘ere in buttfuck, nowhere. How long d’ye reckon we oughta give ’em—”
“Uh oh,” the Avatar said suddenly.
Everyone turned to stare at him, even Weaver and Yngrid, who still had their arms around each other.
“Now, that’s an exclamation I never expected to hear from the likes of you,” Joe said nervously.
“We are about to have more company,” the Avatar said, now frowning. “The translocation eddies put off by the vortex are being co-opted to deposit a spatial tunnel onto this location. That has never happened before.”
“Aye, very ominous,” Billie said. “But what’s it mean?”
“Means someone’s tryin’ to shadow-jump onto this spot,” McGraw explained, clutching his staff. “Which, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, should be multiple kinds of impossible.”
“The act requires the intervention of a high-order ascended being intimately familiar and possessing privileged access to this portal facility,” the Avatar explained, his tone going flat.
“Ah,” said Mary. “Well, we were warned that this course of action was spitting in the eye of a god. Now, it seems, we shall learn what Vidius thinks of it.”
“Oh, aye,” Billie agreed, grinning and reaching into one of her pockets of holding. “Now comes the fun part!”
“Keep it in your pants, girl,” McGraw advised quietly. “We talked about this, remember? We’ll fight for our friends if we have to, but I don’t aim to mix it up with a god or his servants if there’s a chance we can talk ’em down, instead.”
“With all due respect,” Mary added, glancing back at Weaver and Yngrid with the ghost of a smile, “perhaps I should do the talking?”
Before anyone could react to her suggestion, a blade appeared out of nowhere, ripping a diagonal rent in the very air before them.
It was a scythe very much like Yngrid’s—in fact, exactly like it. The weapon parted reality to reveal a gaping slash in the world, through which Vidius’s agent stepped. The moment he was clear, it snapped back together as if it had never been there.
He shifted the weapon to stand upright, planting the butt of its haft against the stone with a resounding thump.
“Yngrid,” Gabriel Arquin stated, frowning at them all, “I am disappointed in you.”
The Gods are Bastards 
“Very, very disappointed. Why the heck didn’t you ask me to help with this!?”
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That does sound like something Gabe would say.
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Literally this. This was also the first thing I thought. Gabriel is definitivly the person who would help.
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Oh boy, Arquin Moments INCOMING!
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Ooo, I can’t wait to see more, I wonder what the rest of the class just saw happen, Gabriel looking towards the golden sea then going, “goddamn it Yngrid” summoning his scythe then waving it about before vanishing. If it even is Gabe, it could be Vidius pretending to be Gabe, though we have seen that Gabe has gotten better with his scythe over the break, with the Deathspeaker interludes and opening a rift to the tower. Can’t wait, I honestly can’t see Gave doing anything too drastic, its probably beyond him to put Yngrid back, and we haven’t been filled in much on what he knows about Valkyries and the purpose for their continued banishment.
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Webb is setting up Gabe for a heel turn, isn’t he? The power creep and character development over the last 3-4 books he has been…….
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I’m thinking it’s more likely that he would have helped if asked, but nobody consulted him.
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I’ll admit i only read this occasionally now, and have sorta lost the bubble on some of it, but still, this is darn fine writing and I’m glad to support it. I tend to read it in infrequent spurts, which doesn’t help w/ comprehension on a horridly complicated bazillion piece plot. Even with that handicap, the quality of both the prose and the broader storytelling remain clear. Dialog and characters remain excellent, despite there being so darn many central to the story(stories). Good pacing, occasional humor (I miss the funnier early days, tbh, but that’s just me), careful and creative world building, etc; there’s a lot to like and few flaws. I like the fact that it isn’t overly dark (a fad, like trends in beer and hemlines, which i hope will pass).
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Let the right one yn.
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I’m kind of surprised they all went along with that. They took a lot of very significant risks, with principles they don’t really understand, for a person they’ve never met before. And that’s not to mention directly antagonizing a god. Vidius does seem to be pretty reasonable, but that’s still pretty big risk.
Weaver I can understand, even if it’s still extremely reckless. Are the rest of them just thrill seekers who would thumb their nose at a god for the fun of it?
In particular, it seems out of character for Mary. She never struck me as overly sentimental. Even with her blood related family, which seems to be a big deal in elven culture, there was a limit to it. She’s a long term planner with schemes going back hundreds or thousands of years. Why would she risk it all for something so unnecessary?
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Considering what we know, Mary is the pinnacle of sentimental. Everything she does and has done seems to be directed at a very specific goal brought on by sentimentality for a particular person in her life. More over, she is actually a very kind person. She genuinely cares a great deal as well. This is perfectly in-keeping with her.
But if you must have a reason… Valkyrie are more powerful then Kitsune and Dryads. That is a fairy ally of such incredible power that just having it’s favor might be enough to make her a stronger shaman.
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I thought the Kitsune were the elder and ranked over the Valkyries?
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Kitsune are the most powerful fairies, nearly as powerful as gods. But appart from that detail, your theory makes sense🙂
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The Kitsune are powerful generalists. The Valkyries are terrifying specialists. It’s an apples and hammers comparison.
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Valkyries can only kill and are very effective at it, but kitsune can rewrite your entire reality. They can resist to the death-aura of Walker, and they are described as having “the power to level mountains”.
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The Walker isn’t a Valkyrie anymore. Where she walks, things die, and that’s it.
Valkyrie can kill pretty much anything, and Fae magic hits the conceptual, so what they can kill will hit the conceptual. They were made to be a cleanup squad for the Infinite Orders constant fuckups. There were meant to act as a ‘no more of this crap’ to all the chaos a Pantheon greater then the current Pantheon could create. And they were so good at ending things that the rest of the Order had a collective ‘fuck no’ the moment they were made.
There’s a reason why they had to talk the Avatar around, and couldn’t just use ‘the Kitsune have been around a long time and have’t cause large scale problems off their island’ as an excuse. A Valkyrie free to walk the mortal world is a big deal.
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Riiiight. Got the order wrong. Kitsune, then Valkyries, then Dryads. All the same yeah. Given how fae magic works, just being friendly with such a being might be enough to get a significant power boost.
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TL:DR version: Walker.
Mary is, if nothing else, a well-meaning busybody of a meddler for all that her ideas of how to “help” seem to need serious revision in many cases. The last time one of the valkyries managed to leave the dimensional firewall it didn’t go so well. This leads to a fractal explosion of possible reasons for her to want to be involved in, or to prevent, the attempt to bust Yrsa out into the normal world. Likely headings include disaster management, agendas and personal interest involving some or all of the party that left on this trip, the demands and interests of her practice of fay magic in what may be a major transformation event for one of Naiya’s daughters, and then who knows what other reasons a thousands of years old elf witch may have picked up for what she does?
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The justification was actually explained a while ago – like ‘In 2018’ a while ago – but this whole endeavour has Vesk’s backing, and Vesk and Vidius were noted as not being the type to ‘crush mortal’s between them’.
So from a certain angle, they have the direct protection of two gods of the Pantheon – one of whom is their erstwhile opponent.
In that light, even serious risks start looking manageable.
Specific to Mary, she’s in something of a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation. She can help, and oppose a Pantheon God, she can hinder, and oppose a Pantheon God and seriously damage some important relationships, or she can refuse to be involved, and let the whole thing happen unsupervised.
It is pretty amusing that she apparently considers option three worse than option one, though.
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True. I mean wasn’t Vidius’s original intercession to save the Valkyries? I don’t think he is gonna be anywhere upset with this
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God dammit…..please do not switch POVs now, please………pretty please……
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Seconded. As much as I like such POV switches in certain circumstances, it has always been a pet peeve of mine when it happens at such a dramatic moment (such that with books I usually skip chapters in between said switches, it can be so irritating). That said, with an inability to do so here, and a high level of trust in the authors skill, (mostly the former on a technicality, since trust doesn’t mean much when one can’t choose), I believe it will turn out fine.
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This POV is very interesting, but those of Ingvar and the class appeal more to me. I cannot wait to see the reactions of the Empire, Tellwyrm and the world at large to these events.
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I get that. But can it wait after?
Sadly, Webb usually only makes two chapter povs in a row if there are multiple threads going on (or at least 90% of the times, he’s broken it for Milanda and Natchua arcs afaik).
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Hmm, our first real hint of how the Pantheon defeated the Infinite Order?
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How so?
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This avatar sounds like he has little else but disrespect and disgust for the Infinite Order. That suggests the method of engineering their downfall was motivated subversion of their systems and assets.
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So the portal opens on the 20th century?
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*A* 20th century.
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Million dollar question – If the portal is only meant to run for an hour at a time, who turned it on and left it running at full power for 8000 years? Vidius?
I wonder what would happen if they shut it off – if that’s even possible
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Well, since you’ve offered me this opening, allow me to exploit it to subject you all to one of my favourite things: longwinded theories. Seriously. Go and get a cup of tea.
(There is a TL;DR)
Ready?
I theorise that it was a whole-Pantheon decision, made as part of their efforts to limit the damaging effects of arcane use.
The language cycle is about four to six thousand years long, and recorded history also begins about four thousand years ago, so my question is this: What happens when a more advanced society has 20th century ideas constantly pumped into it?
Does it stall, or does it collapse?
Is it only language that cycles on this planet, or is it civilisation?
Consider this hypothetical timeline:
8000 years ago, victory is achieved over the Infinite Order, and civilisation starts to rebuild – using advanced knowledge and technology leftover from the Order, with the Pantheon’s blessing. Knowledge is knowledge after all, the source doesn’t matter.
A century or so on, and an advanced civilisation – 22nd, 23rd century equivalent? – is flourishing across the globe… and generating increasing amounts of arcane pollution. We don’t really know what that looks like, but it is worth noting that the most arcane-polluted place we’ve seen in story is Athan’Kar – although that’s not the only problem that place has – and it was mentioned that divine light was totally absent from the whole country.
So the Pantheon can’t easily fix this problem, both because they are slowly getting pushed out of the world and because a civilisation of that level might well be comparable in power to them. So they… do something. It might have been as simple as turning on the portal and watching. They might have had to intervene more directly – fermenting internal conflict or even directly attacking. Personally my money is on option two – something caused Elilial to rebel after all, and slaughtering and oppressing their subjects just as the Order used to do sounds like it fits the bill.
However it went down, the portal ended up switched on. And humans ended up in mud huts. And then… probably about four thousand years passed. And humanity rebuilt themselves back up to 20th century technology levels – quite a feat, remembering that even in the depths of recorded history on Earth, 3800 BC, humans were reading and writing and building out of stone.
This time it’s different though – a 20th century civilisation is much more fragile than a 21st, 22nd, etc century one – see WWI, WWII – and more importantly this time the Pantheon aren’t caught off guard. The system works as intended – a few nudges and humanity returns to their mud huts. And after another four thousand year cycle, the plot of TGaB begins.
Now, there are surely several flaws with this hypothetical – but I can only spot two, so those’ll be the ones I address.
Why does no one remember? Why have none of the immortals ever mentioned ‘oh, yeah, this is actually the second time humanity has risen to prominence’? Well, the first and definitely foremost option is I’m wrong about the length of a cycle. There may be no ‘middle civilisation’. It might have taken eight thousand years to rebuild.
On the other hand, the only two immortals we know to be over four thousand are Mary and Sheyann. The interesting case here is Mary, who spent a large part of her first millenium sequestered away in Qestraceel. It’s possible she completely missed the middle civilisation. Considering that, is it plausible that we are seeing the results of a negative selective factor*? The only way to become an immortal over four thousand years old is to somehow not cotton on to what the Gods are doing? If we delved into Sheyann’s history, would it turn out she spent most of the fourth millennium stuck on an elemental plane or somesuch?
*Specifically the whole ‘immolated-by-the-Gods-for-possessing-forbidden-knowledge’ thing
Even then, you still have trouble with secondary sources – did no one ever mention to Mary ‘hey, humans actually ruled the world for like fifty years back there’? But that leads into the third possible explanation – Mary and Sheyann (or possibly not, if their primary sources belong on this list), the Valkyries and the Kitsune, and a whole bunch of other immortals do know about the cycle, and are protected from divine immolation, but never talk about it because no-one else is.
This, of course, comes with it’s own set of issues – why is Ekoi so worried about this civilisation if she remembers the last one vanishing in a puff of divine interference? Why has there been so much talk of ‘never in the history of the world’ from people who know better? Of course, I can come up with explanations for these, too – perhaps the middle civilisation was stopped earlier, perhaps the Gods were so subtle with it’s collapse that hardly anyone noticed it was inevitalbe – few enough that some subtle immolations were enough to keep the secret.
But at this point I’m adding entities left, right, and center, and Occam’s razor is looming. I lead with ‘there was no middle civilisation’ for a reason. I only ventured the idea to begin with because the four thousand year language cycle and the four thousand year historical record seem like enough foreshadowing to be worth some extra thought, and because there are at least a few >8000 year olds running around, so at least some of those justifications still matter even without the middle civilisation.
Anyway, believe it or not, that was the small problem. The middle civilisation can be removed without affecting the larger theory – and indeed by some philosophies of thought that’s sufficient justification for doing so.
The big problem is- where are you getting all this from, Cat? The Gods destroying civilisation? That’s wildly out of character, when was that even hinted at? To which the answer is, 15-30, by Vesk. Specifically, ‘a new Age of Adventures’. To us, as readers, the Age of Adventures sounds pretty cool. And it probably was. But it was also a time of fairly severe human rights abuses.
Khadizroth, or possibly Zanzayed, mentions how ‘the old method of flying in and burning their city to the ground’ doesn’t work anymore. In one of the bonus chapters Mary threatens to curse a baby to death – as a bluff, sure, but the fact that it worked means that there was sufficient doubt in everyone’s minds as to whether she would actually do it. Unstoppable juggernauts showing up and killing you for something someone else did was clearly a fact of life.
What’s more, the Age of Adventures only functioned because of the huge swathes of unclaimed territory that existed for everyone to, y’know, have adventures in. How exactly is that going to be accounted for?
Now, I don’t think the Gods are actually planning to come in and tear down the Tiraan empire. For starters, letting civilisation build up every four thousand years just to destroy it isn’t a solution, it’s a holding pattern, one I fully expect the Pantheon to be trying to break. Instead, what I think is happening is the Gods are trialing solutions. The purpose of the portal was to slow down the advance of civilisation, to give both Gods and humans the chance to adapt their societies and philosophies to their technology – so that MAD* is implemented before nukes, environmental conservation before massive pollution.
*Or, even, something less lunatically dangerous, like anti-proliferation treaties.
Hopefully it is becoming clear how the Gods could conceivably have destroyed one or two civilisations along the way, despite never doing less than their best for humanity. Specifically, there are two ways I can see the portal affecting things, so I’ll go through both and also, I suppose, hone in on actually answering the original question.
In both options, the fate of the first civilisation, the advanced one from eight thousand years ago is the same – destruction, probably quite direct destruction, at the hands of the Gods, because otherwise they would have killed the entire planet. This is one of the candidates for the secret that turns you against the Gods and/or gets you immolated, although I personally don’t rank it that high – eight thousand years of doing your best for humanity buys a lot of forgiveness, so why protect it so harshly?
Then we get to the divergence. In option one, opening the portal caused civilisation to trend towards a 20th century state – it accelerated up to it, then slowed down once it got past it. This is the ideal, as it lets the Gods try as often as possible. But it also has the the question of why, then, was the middle civilisation destroyed so completely? Which I am not going to try to answer, as I have so little information I am not even comfortable concluding the middle civilisation existed. On the other hand ‘the Gods keep destroying civilisation’ is the best candidate for the big secret.
Option two, opening the portal slowed things down uniformly – it takes longer to reach a 20th century equivalent and longer to surpass it. This is the ‘no middle civilisation’ case. The cause here would be injected societal models that humanity does not have the technological base to support – imagine trying to run an egalitarian democracy when it takes a week to vote, and six months to collect and count the votes. The progress of civilisation would be slowed by the constant collapse of states using inefficient modes of government. This is also a good candidate for the secret, although notably less so than the middle civilisation case. The Gods are retarding our progress vs. the Gods are deliberately destroying our progress.
Ultimately, whilst there are serious negative consequences to the Gods activities, I think it’s still clear how they reached those decisions whilst still acting in character, and applying moral reasoning. In the case of the first civilisation, they had to weigh the lives of everyone alive then against all the future generations they were condemning with their shortsightedness, and may also have been under personal threat either from the arcane pollution or from the civilisation itself.
As for the four-or-eight thousand year gap from then to their next attempt… that is the hardest to countenance. There’s a reason I had it as a front runner for the big secret. I don’t have anything like enough information on their capabilities or the situation to make guesses. All we really know is from Salyrene – that there was intense debate and deliberation and that they very nearly didn’t do it. So it’s reasonable to assume they had alternatives, that they could have started much sooner. But it’s also a fact that they were under direct attack – I can see how they wouldn’t want to direct resources to managing the societies of a planet in that situation.
So to sum up, and finally give my answer to the question: If you turned off the portal, technological progress would leap forward… in a totally unpredictable direction. That is perhaps the biggest advantage of the portal – it lets the Gods try again and again at the same problem, rather than new ones over and over – not just 20th century technology, but the same 20th century technology, in the same countries.
TL;DR
The Gods very probably rapidly advanced the progress of civilisation in the century(ies) after the Elder War, creating a 22nd?, 23rd?, century equivalent. Which they then had to destroy quite directly after it started turning the planet into Athan’Kar-Lite. This may have been the cause of Elilial’s betrayal, and might be the big secret.
The Gods then went the other way, and slowed down the advancement of civilisation by opening the portal, letting them try and build a more functional society – both by artificially forcing it to fall into Earth-like patterns so the Gods could gain experience in solving recurring problems and to give humanity more time to adjust to their own technology. This is an even better candidate for the secret, and possibly the cause of Elilial’s betrayal.
Consequently, closing the portal would undo that, probably requiring or causing a civil war amongst the Pantheon and massively increase the chance of mass pollution ending the world.
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Wow …….I am more confused than I’ve ever been, and I have read the Bhagwad Gita….
Can you TLDR the above and pretend that I am 5 years old….and highly deficient mentally?
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@Anomandris I don’t seem to be able to reply directly to your comment – I assume I am messing up somehow. Regardless:
Ah hell. That’s not promising. I spend so long writing these things I tend to get lost in my own head. There’s probably a whole web of unstated assumptions that make perfect sense to me, but make the whole post incomprehensible to anyone else.
Right, TL;DR 2:TL;DR Harder, here we go.
The portal makes things trend towards being 20th Century Earth. All things, technology included.
The Pantheon worries about arcane pollution.
Pollution is one of the many results of rapid technological progress.
From these three things, it seems reasonable to guess that the Pantheon keep the portal open in order to slow down technological progress and make it more predictable.
This has had many horrible consequences, and might well be the cause of Elilial’s betrayal. However, given the other options, I still think it is an understandable course of action (read: it does not damage my suspension of disbelief.)
That’s all you need to understand to understand what I think would happen if you closed the portal – the Gods would get into a massive fight about it, since it’s literally the most contentious issue they have, and the chance of mass pollution ending the world would go up.
Independent of that, it occured to me that the Pantheon must have gotten their fear of arcane pollution from somewhere.
Further, it would seem logical that right after the Elder War, the Pantheon jumped human civilisation forward massively. After all, that’s a large part of what they fought for – for humanity to no longer live in squalor, at the whims of greater beings. Unfortunately, this was a disaster and that civilisation was destroyed.
This part is a separate theory, but I included it because I like the sound of my… own… keyboard? And because it’s a good lead in.
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Hmm…I am not able to reply to your comment as well ( suspect that nesting beyond a certain level might be banned by the underlying website)?
I do get your theories now. That’s interesting, although I might want to (poke holes) query pertaining to ellial in the above. Why would she care on the slowdown of progress? At least to the extent of going wholly against the Pantheon?
I dunno why, but my thoughts go to a matrix scenario. Everyone else apart from the God’s are in a simulation. That knowledge is what El feels would turn people against the Gods. Of course this is the garbled nonsense of a sleep deprived mind…..
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The problem with slowing down progress is that it leaves humanity helpless before the whims of more powerful creatures. And getting humanity out of that exact situation was probably one of the major motivations of the Pantheon.
Even the worst, most vile of the Elder’s probably didn’t cause that much direct suffering – just because they had other stuff to do. You can only horribly torture someone for so long before you get bored – unless you’ve re-written your brain, in which case you might take to projecting torture-fields across entire dimensions, Scyllith.
But with perhaps one or two exceptions, I imagine the majority of the suffering pre-Ascension wasn’t caused by the Elders, but by the systems they put in place – really, there’s nothing for inducing mass suffering like a malicious system. Destroying those systems quite likely did far more good than actually getting rid of the Elders, at least in a direct numerical comparison, and thus I can see it as being a major component of the Pantheon’s motivation.
To then have to turn around, and impose a system that deliberately damaged and suppressed humans was probably a pretty hard sell.
And that’s not even mentioning my other theory – the advanced civilisation that had to be destroyed. Assume that I’m right, and consider things from Elilial’s perspective:
She’s just finished destroying a civilisation that she’d previously invested all her hopes into, in an act that is horribly reminiscent of the monsters she fought her whole mortal life to bring down. And now she’s hearing about a plan to emulate the very worst, most damaging behaviour of those monsters by instituting a malicious system.
And that’s probably still underselling the massive psychological damage of having to destroy a civilisation. That could well have been enough for her to turn her coat on it’s own – I can say ‘oh, it was understandable enough, and the next eight thousand years really made up for it’, but the next eight thousand years hadn’t happened yet.
So yeah, that’s why I think the slowing of progress is a candidate for having prompted her betrayal. Although it could just as easily have been destroying that first civilisation, or even none of the above, since we have exactly no proof that any of that happened, just a whole bunch of my speculation.
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Good chapter, thanks for it. Will we see a family reunion with Walker in the near future?
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ARRRRRRRRQUUIIIIINNN, please please pleeeeease be a hard ass about & have a good reason. Gabriel Arquin folks, by & large my favourite character from the get go.
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