It's fascinating how varied and versatile Banglen-Yp and the rest of herself can be.  Their powers are beyond any Cyan has ever met, even Berd.  Now, their shapeshifting encompasses taking the forms of Archons...and changing them.  Slowly the bard shakes her head in disbelief, turning back toward the one standing with her within Left.

A message?  Anything she should not tell them?

"Tell them anything and everything," Cyan states.  She lays a hand on Banglen-Yp's arm.  "I appreciate your thoughtfulness in asking.  But I believe nothing good can come of misinformation or holding back.  You - the rest of you - needs to know the whole story.  Otherwise, we cannot proceed in good faith."

Needful, that.  There's a time and a place for 'creative diplomacy'.  Those times and places are few, Cyan believes, and this is not one of them.

"As for a message...well, we are coming."  She offers a small smile, her topaz eyes flashing with hope.  "If you would bid them a good day from me, and our best wishes.  We shall be there shortly enough."

•• The message is being sent now ••  Another smile.  •• Part of me is dealing with that •• A wise idea • to not keep secrets •• It shows trust and friendship ••

•• Which are words I will have to explain to the rest of me ••

Beyond Left, and a little ahead, Malkia suddenly veers right, and leaps, seeming to hang in the air for an unusual length of time, before touching earth again and swerving left.

Left follows the manoeuvre precisely, as do the rest of the group, and suddenly they find themselves crossing an open expanse of barren black sand below a turquoise sky where a sullen red sun burns angrily.

Banglen-Yp's smile slips, •• Malkia has told those other mes that we need to go fast •• There is a thing that lives here that can kill all of us • if it knows we're here ••

"No secrets, no.  None at all," Cyan replies.  "Trust can never be built on a foundation of lies, and right now the time for 'creative diplomacy' is long past.  If we wish to end this war, we must put everything on the line.  And that includes the truth."

She hazards a smile.  "One expects that as you understand - and understand well - the rest of you will have little difficulty."

But her good mood fades at the sight of the world before them, and she nods along with Banglen-Yp's words.  "Well do I remember this land," Cyan whispers, her eyes dull, pale sapphire.  "Best we do hurry.  The Gatherer has had little to consume, and mayhaps it has turned upon itself...but perhaps it has grown even greater."  She shudders.  "Would that this world suffer the fate of the one where I fell.  Such a beast should fall into oblivion, never to be seen again."

Dunes of blackened sand file past as the group continue on their way, and something else... wisps of smoke, oily and black, which set James and Malkia to coughing, and cause those Banglen-Yps who are not in Archon shape to transform.

The smoke grows denser as they journey on, and now it contains blackened ash and fragmentsd of what seems to be burned leather.

And then they reach the crest of a dune, taller than most of the others.  In the distance, a mountain burns, and the smoke and ash blow from there.

But there is something not right.

Mountains do not have arrays of scorched bone jutting from gaping ragged-edged holes.  Holes from which something blue-black oozes and boils and smokes in the blazing fires.  Nor do they have a thick skin, which flakes away to rise on currents of heated air and, burning, to drift on the wind.

Nor do they have eyes, glassy and faceted like those of an enormous fly, hundreds of feet across, and torn open by some unknown force.

This is not a mountain, and it is dead...

The shape of nightmares; Cyan's nightmares, in fact.  She crouches involuntarily at the sight, wincing away before it becomes clear that the brobdingagian colossus is the source of the smoke, smoke that even now Berd reaches out to banish from James and Malkia, to keep them from inhaling it.  Swallowing nausea, Cyan finally faces her fear.

Even in death, the Gatherer is an appalling scar upon the world, a mountainous horror nigh-impossible for the mind to grasp.

"Dead..." she whispers, staring at the wounds, the rents, the burning.  "How?"  Pinpoint attacks upon the faceted orbs.  Shocking amount of thermal energies deployed against it.  Her pale, pale sapphire eyes narrow, suddenly flooding with darkness, going deep grey into hematite.  "Archons?" the General muses. "Danioti and eshurianti?  Left?  Staosha?  Barkiel?  Do you know aught of this?"

She would ask Shalgiel, but obviously the sencathi would have no idea.

There is a brief pause, and a suggestion of urgent whispers leaking from Left's mind.  And then, + NONE OF US KNOW ANYTHING OF THIS PLACE, OR THE CREATURE GENERAL.  EVEN HARBONAH SAYS THAT HE HAS NO KNOWLEDGE OF IT.  HE ADMITS TO CURIOSITY THOUGH, AND SUGGESTS THAT IT IS WELL THAT OUR PEOPLE INTEND TO LEAVE FOR A NEW PLACE, IF THERE ARE THINGS LIKE THAT HERE.  AND WORSE - THERE ARE THINGS THAT COULD DESTROY IT. +

The corpse lays across the landscape, burning and blasted.  The group would avoid it, but Malkia follows a precise path, and any deviation could add days to their journey, so they draw closer.

And nearer, black things that are neither bird nor fly, but some horrible hybrid of the two, can be seen feasting on the carcass, emerging in swarms from the vast wounds which dot its flesh.

"Impossible," Cyan breathes.  She had always thought the Archons had placed the Gatherer upon this world, to channel energy into the sphere.  Perhaps that had not been the case.  "Left, none of your compatriots know anything about this world?"  Her ruby eyes narrow.  "Rhetorical.  Inform them we found a sphere here, draining the world's life.  We assumed it had something to do with the Gatherer.  Apparently it did not, or if it did, only peripherally."

Her lips thin.  "Unless your people did not place the sphere here after all.  This world was connected to one of the cubes we found, cubes like those your people used..."

Wait.  Something isn't right.  The Archons have no personal need for cubes to travel.

"Left, why did your people make the cubes?  Or DID they make them?  What was their purpose?"

Left is silent for a moment, and again there is a suggestion of whispering, until a voice finally sounds clear above the rest.  But it is not Left, but Harbonnah communicating through Left, + WE DO NOT NEED THE CUBES, THE KDIKTROKH, THIS IS TRUE, BUT WE HAVE AGENTS... SERVANTS... WHO DO REQUIRE THEM.  WE COULD EITHER HAVE SOME OF THOSE SERVANTS CREATE A DEVICE THAT WOULD ALLOW OTHERS TO TRAVEL INDEPENDENTLY, OR WE COULD TAKE OUR AGENTS TO EVERY LOCATION OURSELVES.  THAT WOULD NOT BE EFFICIENT. +

And another pause...

+ WE ARE ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SPHERES.  AGAIN THEY WERE CREATED FOR US.  BUT THEY WERE PLACED BY OUR AGENTS TO WEAKEN WORLDS AT SPECIFIC LOCATIONS.  WE DID NOT EXAMINE THOSE WORLDS, THE LOCATIONS WERE DETERMINED BY COMPLEX FORMULAE.  THERE ARE LINES OF FORCE THAT CONNECT WORLDS THROUGH THE UNDERFLOW.  A WEAKENED WORLD AT A KEY LOCATION WILL WEAKEN OTHER WORLDS THAT ARE LINKED TO IT. +

+ SOME OF THE SPHERES WERE PLACED BY THOSE WORKING AGAINST THE SERAPHIM.  A WEAKENED WORLD IN THE WRONG LOCATION COULD DISRUPT LINKS BETWEEN OTHER WORLDS. +

"Understood, Lord Harbonah," Cyan replies.  Politeness, and a grudging respect for her former 'master', presses her to continue with the honorific.  "I begin to see what you mean about the nephillim."  That they would sacrifice whole worlds in opposition to Harbonah...while they might wish the Myriad Worlds to survive, their mindset remains the same: logic and numbers dictating the destruction of some worlds to balk the destruction of all.

"I understand the use.  We divined it some time ago, through examination.  Berd?"

There comes a flare in the air within Left, as Berd again opens a 'window' into the Myriad Worlds, a representation of them (crude and finite, but sufficient) with a mapping of the webwork of 'cracks' he detected.

The General waves toward the image.  "We discovered the purpose, and noted that at some point - possibly even before the poles were disrupted - a cascade failure would occur.  Destruction, dissolution...a return to something we couldn't even call Chaos.  That name being taken."  She chuckles, but her hematite eyes are grim.

They clear, shimmering toward amethyst.

"You say the spheres were made for you.  By whom, if I might ask?"  Her eyes narrow.  "The death of the Gatherer makes me wonder.  It appears as it might after being struck by an army of your people...but what if that were not the case?  What if someone else has a spoon stirring this pot?"  She grimaces.  "So to speak."

+ BY SEVERAL GROUPS.  WHEN WE DISCOVER SOMETHING OF USE, WHICH WE ARE UNABLE TO REPLICATE OURSELVES, WE FIND OTHERS WHO CAN.  WITH SO MANY WORLDS, IT IS EXTREMELY UNLIKELY THAT A PARTICULAR INNOVATION WILL BE UNIQUE TO ONE OF THEM. +

+ WE BELIEVE YOU MAY HAVE BEEN TO ONE WORLD WHERE THE INHABITANTS WERE COERCED INTO MAKING THESE TOOLS. +

And a memory comes to Cyan.  Faint, from before her time as the General... a city of glass, populated by glittering metal spiders.

And then something odd happens.  Harbonah's voice grows quiet, thoughtful, + THAT WORLD STILL EXISTS - THE SLAVES REVOLTED AND FREED THEMSELVES.  WE HAVE NEVER FOUND THE TIME TO PUNISH THEM. +

+ THERE WAS INSUFFICIENT INCENTIVE TO DO SO. +

"Yes."  Cyan's smile grows wistful for a moment.  "THX 1138.  One of the inhabitants of that world.  I knew it, personally."  She slowly shakes her head.  "I recall the battle."  Her amusement fades.  "Such terrible losses on both sides..."

A shake of the head follows, and she listens to Harbonah speak.  A curious look enters her topaz orbs, and her brows draw together.  "Insufficient incentive?  Are you certain, Lord Harbonah?  Or might it have been something different?"  She keeps her voice pitched soft, without pressure in the questions...almost rhetorical.  "Might it have been you found an incentive not to punish them?  Some...understanding of why they might wish their freedom, some empathy for that wish?"  Her voice drops lower, her tone echoing pain.  "Especially after the imprisoning of your own people."

The bard walks a slow circle within Left, widdershins.  "I ask, seeking understanding of my own.  I feel it is through understanding that beings might coexist.  Might find common ground.  Might find reasons to avoid conflict."  She raises her hands, lets them fall like autumn leaves.  "I am...weary of fighting.  Of watching friends and, yes, enemies die.  It brings me no pleasure."

She stares into the distance, into the past.  "I recall hurts that have long-since faded, and the anger is a sickness within me.  I would rather set it aside."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:36, Tue 21 July 2015.

Harbonah falls silent, perhaps pondering Cyan's question.  Meanwhile Malkia keeps moving, and the whole group with her.

Gradually the broken husk of the Gatherer falls behind, and the landscape changes...

Now a dismal swamp beneath a sky where dense black clouds scud ahead of the group far too quickly...

Now a grey desert, where the ground itself shifts and quivers beneath Malkia's every step...

Now a grassy plain, being stripped of all vegetation by a vast swarm of locusts...

Now a world of rusted metal and broken bones, where machines circle in the night sky, casting bright beams of light on the ground, hunting for something...

Now a beach, where wrecks of widely divergent age lay, broken, at the water's edge, overrun by crab-like creatures...

Now a forest...  And Malkia stops running.  In the distance, through a break in the trees, a single huge mountain can be seen rising into the rain-filled sky.

James' voice comes over the link, "Arden.  From here we must travel by more mundane means."

"And out, then."  Cyan straightens.  "Left, we need to disembark."  She shakes her head at the sights they had seen.  That rusted landscape of machines...from what genesis did that leap?

With a sigh, she checks Fangmir in its scabbard, then shrugs.  This close to Amber, they should be safe.  Oh, there's the possibility of some of the forces still engaged with one another, but...

...they have Harbonah with them.

Malkia watches curiously, and shakes her head, as Left disgorges Cyan and Banglen-Yp onto the ground.  "There is still a fair way to go, and I was about to suggest that Jim could ride with you in there.  I can not travel so easily, this close to Amber, but if Archons are attacking here, then I have to assume that they have no difficulty with getting about."

"For my part, I have led you this far, but this is as close as I care to get to that stinking city.  I take my leave of you now, to return to my own hunting grounds, where the air carries only the scent of prey, and of its own food."

She raises her head, and sniffs loudly, "Here I smell only the city, even this far away."

"I take my leave, but I wish you luck, for your luck is the luck of all.  Come see me Jim, when this is over, you were always welcome on my territory."

"My thanks, Malika," Cyan replies with a low bow.  "I had hoped to enjoy your company further - perhaps hear further stories of James -" with a sly glance toward that worthy "- but I understand.  I wish you luck as well, in turn, and perhaps we might meet again in the future."

To the others, she turns a brow as furrowed as the desert sand.  "I had not thought further how to travel to Amber," Cyan confesses.  "Perhaps it might be wise to ride within Left, but I am concerned at the response toward a group of Archons.  Would it be possible to find horses, James?"  An eyebrow quirks, sharp as any arrowhead.  "Is that yet within your capacity?  I understand things grow difficult close to the Golden City."

James bows to Malkia, who lowers her head in reply before turning and loping away through the trees.

Smiling, James starts walking towards the distant peak.  "Horses should be doable, and in short order.  Malkia, for all her speed, has limits on what she can do, as do I.  My own limits are slightly more flexible than hers though."

The sun beams down though breaks in the canopy of leaves above them, golden shafts of light dappling the forest floor.

Left opens up, and swallows the other Archons, before reducing in size to become no larger than a a gold ring, hovering close to Cyan.

+ THIS SEEMS LIKE A PRUDENT COURSE OF ACTION.  LESS RISK OF FIRE AMONG THESE TREES. + her voice reaches the bard's ears, quiet, like the buzzing of a slow-moving bee.

And after a short while walking through Arden, the neigh of a horse comes from somewhere not too far off.  James stops.  "We should approach carefully.  Where there are horses, there are likely to be riders, and we have no idea who they might be."

"Spectacular, James!"  Pleased, Cyan moves along beside him, linking her arm with his as she does.  "A walk through the forest on a splendid day; I cannot say I will complain for a small break from our hurries."  The bard raises her face to the sunlight, closing her eyes for a moment to allow all of her attention for the benison of the warmth upon her skin.

A root almost trips her up; with a laugh, she opens her topaz orbs to mind her way, Berd complaining bitterly all the while.

"A fine idea, Left," Cyan admits.  "That would be...a poor announcement of our presence."  Her gaze slants to James, one eyebrow arching.  "You say your limits are more flexible?  How so?  I never truly understood what you do, James."

But at the sound of horses, she quiets herself, nodding to James' warning in full agreement.  "Best to be wary," Cyan admits.  "This is something of a recent war zone, I understand.  Berd?"

Fulminating like a factory stack, Berd sits up.  Evincing deep scorn - and likely not fooling anyone - he sends his consciousness forward, seeking the source of the sounds.

Berd discovers a troop of soldiers, in the livery of Amber, resting close to a stream.  They are laying or sitting on the ground, in the open, and have sentries posted around the perimeter of their camp.  No fires, and no tents.  Some of the men are eating, their food apparently cold.

The horses have been hobbled, but are otherwise free to wander, and their tack is laid on the ground near one of the trees.

All in all, it looks to be a temporary camp, perhaps no more than a place where they have stopped to eat, before moving on.

Spotting the camp, Cyan raises an eyebrow toward James.  "Yours?" she inquires in a whisper.  It has always perplexed her how those of Amber and the Broken Pattern work their magic.  It almost appears...natural.  Coincidental, she considers, might be a more appropriate term.

If these are the horses James 'requested', they will now have to persuade their riders to part with some.  Fortunately, James himself is a scion of Amber.  It's possible he knows the proper words to allow them passage.  "I trust you can handle this," she continues in a whisper, sapphire eyes alight with curiosity.

It's always fascinating watching others work.

"Gather about," she quietly requests of the Archons.  "Well, gather here, Left.  Let us attempt to avoid confusion - for these men, your people might yet be considered as foes."

James steps out into the open, while Left, all the other Archons held within her, diminishes further still, and becomes little more than a fly in terms of size.

"Hello in the camp!" James calls out, and moves closer.  There is a stirring among the men, and a voice responds, "James?  Is that you?"

"Kallum?"

"Aye, it's me.  What are you doing way out here?  Shouldn't you be back at the castle, hobnobbing with royalty?"  The man who steps out of the crowd to greet James looks to be of similar age, with untidy reddish hair and a neatly trimmed beard.  Hazel eyes take in James' appearance, and he grins, "Been travelling?"

"It's good to see you too.  Maybe you can help us?  We need a couple of horses."

Kallum nods, his expression becoming a little grimmer.  "You're in luck I suppose.  We lost a few men in a skirmish yesterday, so I can let you borrow mounts and tack.  Anything else you need, I'll need to see what I can find.  Provisions are in short supply, but I'll try, if you need them."

Cyan trundles along in James' wake, content to allow him to take the lead.  These are, after all, troops of Amber, possibly known to him and quite likely known by them in return.  Moments later, that becomes perfectly clear.

Kallum, she considers.  Seems a decent fellow.  Better still with his opinion of his lost men.  Though, Cyan considers, any who didn't care for such would likely not be considered a welcome sight by James.

Everything seems in order; she glances around the camp with some curiosity as Berd shoots a thin-eyed glance in Kallum's direction before falling back to sleep.  "We don't require supplies," she quietly reminds James, staying slightly back and past his shoulder.

Upon further consideration, Berd snorts once.

"Kallum is an old friend." James explains to Cyan, "Kallum, this is Cyan, de facto leader of our mission for the Family.  Where are we?  Southwold?  Fastwater Vale?"

"Pleased to meet you.  Southwold is about three miles... " Kallum looks about, then at the sky, before pointing, "... that way."

"So we're only a few hours out of the city.  Good.  Strange that there isn't much game about.  Though I suppose if the enemy came through here, they took a lot of it."

"That, and the fighting scared the rest off.  I've got hunters out, but they're having to go over to the next valley to find much." Kallum laughs quietly, "The service here is terrible.  There's food on the way, it just take a while to get here."

Cyan offers a bow to Kallum, but leaves it to James to continue.  He might consider her the de facto leader, but he's doing the talking right now and making a fine job if it.  And three miles?  That's a short distance.  An easy distance, in fact.  They can do that on foot in short order.

"James," she quietly begins.  "If it's so close to a village, we can purchase mounts there.  It might be good for your friend to keep his extra mounts, in case he meets stragglers from Amber's army."  Then she offers a small nod, hiding her sapphire eyes.  "But I do not know this region - it is your decision."

Berd, for his matter, sets a plan in motion.  It's not a difficult plan, and requires very little of his time.  Just one of the hydra...the rest are busy.  Or asleep.

James considers, then shakes his head, "That would be three miles out of our way, and unless I miss my guess, the last mile and a half is difficult terrain.  With Kolvir there," he points towards the distant peak, "then Southwold lays east of us, and the land on this side of the village is a tangle of scrub and brambles, with marshland in between."

And then he smiles as he adds, partly for Kallum's benefit, "Besides, our mission has a certain degree of urgency about it, or do you really want to leave everything in Luke's hands for any longer than necessary?"

"We're better to take Kallum's offer, and make all haste directly to the castle."

"As you say, James."  Cyan nods her head, her topaz eyes vanishing behind her rusty locks for an instant.  "As you say.  I bow to your greater knowledge of the situation."  She straightens, and her hand clenches for an instant as if around an enemy's neck.

Luke.

Oh, she does not like that one, and still has no idea why.  Likely it has something to do with her 'parentage', whatever raw energies Berd utilized in her creation.  "Best we hurry, indeed," the bard mutters before turning a sunny smile upon Kallum.  "Well, then!  Your offer?  It is much appreciated, and we shall accept it without further ado."