The task is not an easy one, not least of the reasons being the fact that Cyan can ill afford to look too closely at what she is working on.

Benich shrugs, finishes his meal, and settles down for a nap.  Smoke rises from the damp wood of the fire, filling the hollows of the cave ceiling, before seeping out of the entrance.  Even so, the scent of it fills the chamber, and does seem to keep the insects at bay.  A little smoke is a small price to pay, considering the alternatives.

Eventually a chunk of rock is cut loose from the ceiling, a little bigger than a human head.  Cyan's blade cuts through the stone, not so easily as a hot knife through butter, but with a certain amount of flame, sparks, and smoke, as well as some degree of hissing and crackling.

At last though, there is a rough slice of stone laying on the sand floor, trimmed to size, and a little smaller than a dinner plate, bearing a crude depiction of an Archon.  The cut sides look almost melted.

The blade is carefully sheathed, and the noise of it scraping against the scabbard sounds almost sullen.

Devlin takes the makeshift palanquet, and the sound of movement in the cave wakes Benich, who stretches, and yawns.  "You is ready to leaving.  Must cross Myras 'fore night.  Not good there after darkfalling."

Devlin watches Cyan's work in silence and when it is finished he looks down the the stone slab for a moment.

Then, picking the thing up he turns so that Benich can not see "The Magic". The man presses the dinner plate size stone against his chest. As he does so the thing seems to slide right through his clothes until it disappears from sight.

When Devlin turns back, the stone is gone.

"Ready." he announces.

It is with some relief that Cyan returns the blade to its scabbard, not looking at either of the men as she does.  Berd croons in her ear, and she slowly nods in reply.  "We should return it soon," she whispers.  Better to get the awful thing far, far away from her.  "The Master of Doom will require it at some point - I would rather he and the Herald not face the Lord of Fetters without it."

She misses Kirilindë.  But no, the blade is broken and would prove ineffective against an Archon.  Better to keep hold of the Deathiron, for the nonce.

It is with some interest she notes Devlin's storage of the item, and a faint, queasy look comes over her face as it disappears.  A sapphire glance to Dorian - did you see that?, it inquires - then she returns her gaze to Devlin.  "A...curious trick, if a trifle unsettling," Cyan confesses.  "But it is in contact with you.  Be wary how much you think upon it, Devlin - it might beget a bridging."

A bow to Benich follows.  "Yes - prepared."   A wave of the hand.  "Lead on."

Benich returns to the boat, and inspects it carefully beforen getting too close.  After all, in this place, any number of things might have crawled into the craft in their absence.  Satisfied, he gestures for everybody to settle into the vessel, before propelling it away from the islet.

He squints up at the sky, and gives a nod of satisfaction.  And then, he begins to whistle.

The melody is slow, keeping time with his work, and the notes seem to hang in the heavy air, eerie and haunting.

After a while, the tune drops down into silence, and Benich, after a little thought, says, "That are a song that the cave making me think of every time I sees it.  A old song... the words is like this."

"Them cutted a hole,
With knifes of iron.
And now the life is run out.
Myras are dead.  Myras are dead.
All the life runs out.

The world were good,
'til them cutted a hole.
Now all the life is run out.
Myras are dead, since them maked the hole.
And all the life runs out."

"There's more, but like the same."

Devlin smiles at Cyan's statement about "a curious trick", but then she asks if it is in contact with him and this worries him. "I thought one must gaze into it and concentrate upon it to make a connections. Can contact be made by merely toughing it?" He asks. "I will take precautions and not think on it."


It is not long and they are in the boat, Benich whistling, when Devlin gets a far away look in his eyes that turns to a look of alarm. He turns to look at Cyan and Dorian and then back at Cyan. "We must hurry. No not hurry, we must go. ämi has a message from Trista. They are in danger. The seraphim are there."

"If you think upon it too much while touching it, while containing it within your body," Cyan warns, "you might very well begin a kind of connection.  Usually it requires sight, but..."  Her lips twist.  "That palanquet was a different sort of creation.  One would do well to be cautious."

She turns to stare sadly out over the water as Benich sings.  When his song runs down, she sighs, her emerald eyes sorrowful.  "They did cut a hole, Benich."  The bard glances at their guide.  "They did.  And this world began to die."  Her heart aches - how long had that open gate poured away the life of this sphere back into the darkness?  "The hole is sealed, now.  Sealed...but much life has already leaked away."

Accursed Seraphim.

On her shoulder, Berd's eyelid opens.  Just a crack.  And begins to shine.

Cyan jerks her head to Devlin at the man's whisper.  "Where are they, Devlin?"  She glances at the drake.  "Berd might be able to take us there, but if the Archons already surround the world..."  Her lips thin.  "We must try.  Can you show Berd where?"

Benich continues to pole the boat, in silence now, his expression thoughtful.  Perhaps the realisation has hit home that these people treat old stories, legends and songs as if they are true, and happening now.

That's something he might lose sleep over, in his twilight years...


Berd's head suddenly snaps up, and his eyes open wide...

As she waits for Devlin to show Berd the way, Cyan closes her dull, jade eyes, searching the broken fragments of her memories.  Each time, she pulls them closer together.  Each time more of them fuse - sometimes improperly, but mostly in their right places and times.  The patchwork of her life becomes more coherent, a half-finished puzzle she skims, hunting for connections.  Berd assists, showing her one.

The Orbs.  The dead world where...where I was lost.  A giant form, barely visible through a screaming storm, miles high with so very, many mouths...

The bard shudders.  "Where we first met Aaron," she whispers.  Her eyes snap open and she nods to her father.  "Yes."

Her voice rises slightly to include the others.  "The Orbs, the Gatherer, the world with the strange machine to which we travelled from the land of the Brintizzi.  This world, with its wounded circle.  All the same.  All attempts, some similar, some different, to bleed the life from a world, to make of it a void, an empty space...."  Her lips thin.  "Something the Archons can manipulate, perhaps.  We know they wish to make the Myriad Spheres their own.  We know of the line of Breaks, stretching from Pole to Pole.  This is another of them - one of their attempts.  Perhaps an early one.  Perhaps one of the earliest, when the Seraphim had only just realized the potential."

Perhaps, she muses, the first one, where the Seraphim stumbled across this method of altering a world.  Crude...slow...time flows differently throughout the spheres.  This might well have been their prototype.

Devlin concentrates on trying lo locate Trista by the impression given by ämi. When he speaks again it is not with good new. "ämi is close to us and to Trista. We are very close to her. Like the three worlds touch, but I can't get an accurate impression of her location. I could go to where ämi is but that would do us little good."

The man looks concerned. "Trista's last message was that there is one seraphim... but something about a good Archon and something about a Lexy. What's a Lexy?. The connection is weak, like there are many worlds between and at the same time very close."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:23, Sun 05 Oct 2008.

Cyan's jaw tightens.  "If we are close to Trista..."  Her sapphire gaze falls upon Berd, then flicks to Dorian.  "We have two here who might be able to locate her.  Swiftly."

Berd's shining orbs slowly close, then open again, a long, slow blink.  He stares into an incalculabe distance.  Hunting.

"Lexy."  A corner of Cyan's mouth quirks, and she slowly nods, fighting for memory.  "A name I know well...a Lady of Chaos, she began on this quest with myself and others, years ago.  A shapeshifter, a master of the Logrus, and a sorceress, all three.  And there is one of the Nephillim, perhaps?  Then Trista has solid allies."

Good.  Things are not quite so desperate as they seem.  "I could summon Left and Right," she muses.  "But they are far, far away, and would likely not come in time."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:06, Mon 29 Sept 2008.

Dorian's far away gaze returns to the others. "Indeed," he says, his voice soft and low. "If ami could show me a destination, I could attach a dark tendril and use sorcery to teleport us to them. I've never moved across such great distance in that manner, but it is a sound idea ... in theory. Without that, I would waste a great deal of time flailing around in the worlds seeking the correct place."

The boat moves rapidly through the foetid marsh.  The air is still and filled with insects, and there are things, possibly fish, possibly something else, which occasionally break the surface near the small craft.  Benich, for the most part, tends to ignore these creatures, though at one point he uses the flat side his spear to crush a wasp-like bug which is crawling along the gunwale.

Once it is dead, he uses the tip of the weapon to flick it into the water, where some kind of fish rises to devour it.  The man returns the spear to its other purpose, propelling the boat.  In the wake of the craft, a fish floats to the surface, dead...

In the distance, miles ahead of the boat, mountains become dimly visible through the haze-laden air.

"We can seeing mountains.  Things being difference now.  Less water, more ground.  Not all good, but better than was." Benich states, then adds, "Main thing here is being crocodiles.  Still be keeping everything inside the boat."

Devlin shakes his head. Frustration is apparent. "I may be able to get you to ämi, or at least give you an impression of where it is, but we do not need to go to ämi, we need to find Chance and Trista. It seems that the creature is sharing a link with the girl that I cannot also share. It is not like..." He shakes his head again and looks at Berd.

"The impressions I'm getting are of... BUgs, the sKY, WEather, a branch where it rested, a large hawk that it hid from, nothing of the girls location except that she is close." Yet again he shakes his head.

"ämi is but a child. I'm afraid the creature has a lot that must yet be learned. If Berd cannot locate them then we must wait until ämi reaches them."


There is a slight pause and then Devlin speaks again. "I have urged ämi to hurry. I would have asked for Trista to send an impression of where she is to relay, but I think that would be useless by the time it reached me. More than likely he'd just note if there were any worms there..."

Dorian shrugs. "Yes, I am aware of where we need to go. I apologize for not explainging my methods in depth. It is not a habit for me yet, but I shall endeavor to make it so.

"You said the bird is closer to Trista. You also said we are close. By searching from both points, we would increase our ability to find Trista. Even using this point as a reference when searching from that point would give us an advantage. Perhaps even knowing ami's location would help.

However, since we can't go to the bird's location, I shall use my own methods instead."

Devlin looks from Dorian to Berd to Cyan and back to Dorian, sudden understanding. "I thought... Never mind. I can give you the impression of where ämi is, if that will help... do not apologize, take what you need... "

The man looks into Dorian's eyes and opens up that part of his mind that contains the small bird's impression of its own location to both Dorian and Berd. The sky, the wind, the trees and places of resting... it is an odd impression, as seen through the eyes of a bird, but an impression none the less.

Normally, Devlin would not so quickly allow these things to be probed by any but Berd, but there is a need for urgency. There is some connection that he feels toward the woman; not like the connection with Serena, more like the connection he felt toward Ishirena, yet not quite that either. In any case, the man felt an urgent need to protect her.

"If you're more comfortable with Berd doing ... very well."

Dorian nods and looks, careful to keep his "hands" to himself, as it were. Devlin's willingness startles him into even more care than he might otherwise take. With most minds, he searches for signs of Archon tampering or control, but in Devlin's mind he forbids himself even those precautions.

"Thank you, Benich..."  Cyan nods to the man, proferring a thankful smile.  The discussion right now concerns things of which she need only take peripheral heed - she grins, though, at the description of ämi's impressions.  The grin softens into another smile, this one nostalgic, recalling faint memories of her own youth.  With worms, even, though not for food.  "Yes," she whispers to Berd.  "I believe you."

Her amber eyes clear.  "I believe that will be enough, Devlin."  A quick smile to Dorian - the shadowy sorcerer will be using his own, highly skilled and trained methods - and Cyan begins to check over her equipment.  In this arena, she is not at all useful.

Berd, on the other hand, studies the dark wanderer's offer for a long moment.  He blinks, and his hydra-mind erupts, heads vectoring off from the others.  Now multiplied, he searches simultaneously for Trista and ämi, and takes the shorter route - two minds leapfrog straight from Devlin to ämi, through their link.  One of them pauses to catalogue the world, that information gathered by still another Berd to be mapped vis à vis their own position.  Other minds calculate distances through the twists of the Underflow, attempting to determine if World Walking is preferable to Immersion.

The other mind within ämi seeks that feeling within the bird leading it to Trista...and sets off along that course.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:49, Mon 06 Oct 2008.

Time passes, hours, as the boat continues through the great marsh, and the sun slides gradually down the sky.  Beyond the initial conversation, the passengers lapse into silence, punctuated by occasional questions and requests for clarification.  Gradually the tone of the questions requests changes, growing more specific, more detailed, as further information is gathered.

The mountains are closer now, and there is lightning flickering faintly, somewhere beyond the peaks.

"There is interference," Dorian says after some time of concentration. "I don't know if it is deliberate, but from what I can tell she is moving and vanishing repeatedly. That is disconcerting, since I don't either she or Chance had any such ability. Yet, she is close. We must press on."

Cyan bites her lip, nodding at Dorian's word.  "Berd concurs - ämi flies within a world next to hers.  He sees...."  She pauses, and the her sapphire eyes pale, the colour slowly leeching from them, from twillight's sky to winter's azure, and further yet.  "They will take her," she whispers, her voice catching.  Her fingers work, arms inching higher.  "Take her to their castle, into the dark room, and burn-"

Berd releases a single cry, the chime of a crystal bell, and the bard blinks, eyes shading a touch darker.  Then she stands, balancing perfectly in the boat.

"Archons.  There are archons near her.  We know the world.  We cannot tarry.  We must go, now."  Berd rises upon her shoulder, his wings fanning the air, eyes beginning to burn.  "Benich - your world will hold, now.  It bleeds no more.  Perhaps someday Berd will return to mend the damage itself - until then, we must leave you now.  Dorian - if you have a swifter way, take us now; otherwise, we travel beneath the Myriad Worlds."

Minutes pass into more minutes and then into hours. Devlin's mind races with the things that might be happening where he can do little to help. ämi is confused, Trista seems to be moving. He looks up at the mountains, the bird is there. The man cannot see the creature but he knows where it is.

He is about to say something when Dorian states the problem, but then Cyan. She that the archon will take her, and Devlin assumes that by her, Cyan means Trista.

Devlin is about to leap and run across the worlds till he finds her when Cyan stands and announces that Berd has found her. Without hesitation he too stands, though a bit more slowly making sure not to unbalance the boat. "ämi," He says aloud, also adding the mental message to the bird, "come to me. We are going to where she is now"

Then he looks to Cyan, eyes wide, head tipped, expectant.

Dorian tilts his head, considering. Beneath the worlds--but where there is a tide, there is surely a shore. Certainly they must realize what this means. Berd especially.

"Very well," Dorian says. He gathers his cloak about him and steps forward. He pulls the hood of his cloak over his head. "We shall do as you say, then."

The mouse shall attempt to steal the cheese and outrun the spring. Except in this case, the mouse would try to defeat the spring. How many more times can we expect to get away with this, he wonders?

Berd's eyes flare to their fullest as he gathers the trio about him.  As he does, Cyan turns toward Benich, raising a hand.  "Farewell, boatman.  Safe travels back to your village."

Within Berd, defenses rise to the fore, the hydra-mind preparing itself for a short sojourn through the Underflow.  Echoes are readied, layers of armor raised against threats physical and spiritual, and the entire gathering muted against detection.  A concerted effort will breach that cloak, but Berd is prepared...and not alone.

"ämi," Cyan notes as the colours bleed from her eyes, a small smile growing on her lips, "may have some difficulty finding us for a short time."  One hand rises to settle upon the deathiron's hilt.  "Hopefully we can succor Trista safely, without attracting the Seraphim's full attention."

Hopefully.

An eddy forms in reality around them, and Berd spins them away, out past the billion, shining globes in the deep, dark void, and down into the blazing river below.