Mahara?a, the palace by the Lake, 20 years later.

  What was it now?

  Atacherel wondered as his carriage rattled along the road leading to the palace.

  Couldn't they have had that road built slightly smoother, too, I am being rattled in my box like a dice in a drunkards game!

  He had been in a foul mood ever since the summon had reached him back in the Sillaribes. The voyage to Mahara?a had been plagued with sudden gales, ineptly dealt with by the complacent captain that he had had to sanction several times for over zealous discipline and careless use of the ship. Though he had to admit that Canem had put some balm on his sores. The town now had a soul, it was turning beautiful, the marble like stone they had quarried on the nearby hills, the gentle carefree people that had settled, the ambitious public housing program designed by Merorae, even the yards and the elevators bringing ships and wares from sea level to the town, everything functioned perfectly well. Seeing Merorae again had been good too. The old bat was sharp as ever and her tongue still cut deeper than a blade, but nearing her hundredth anniversary her legs had betrayed her and she remained seated on a clever contraption invented by one of her grand daughter...or was it great grandaughter, these people never stopped growing and he could not remember the first of their names.

  The carriage rattle harder than ever before, projecting Atacherel from his seat and stopping completely. Unable to regain the appearance of dignity before the door was flung open, he was discovered by the young Natab in charge of leading him into the palace on his hands and knees with parts of his coat flung over his head. Atacherel attempted one of his icy stares that normally sends shivers down the spines of even senior commodores but clearly the young soldier was well trained and remained emotionless in appearance. He silently guided the admiral down vaulted corridors and black stoned stairways the walls of which were adorned with stylized aquatic plants and flowers inlaid with what looked like mother-of-pearl and other shiny material he had never seen before. They soon entered a large room, its walls entirely covered with frescoes depicting the meeting between the Lost Rehev?mes and Natab and the Veviensis, and the construction of the palace and the town below. The ceiling supported by oversized timber was entirely gilded. Aside from the main aisle, the room was filled with tables and people sorting piles upon piles of documents. The spoils of the Remote Monasteries. He even saw some men and women still wearing tattered monks robes helping Rehev?mes and Balà out.

  Hostages, or former hostages converted to our cause.

  He thought. But the young Natab wasn't taking time for sightseeing and plowed on towards the large door directly set at the end of the main aisle.

  As the door was shutting close silently behind him a large woman with a worried look on her face came trotting towards him.

  "Your highness, Sir, we have been anxiously waiting for news of your arrival. I am so glad you are finally here. I am Cadish Pacore of the Fallen Rehev?me. You would not believe the state She has been into since the revelation. She has refused to speak or explain anything until you would be here. She said the need for the Fast-Sails and their talented sailors has never been more urgent. Her words not mine. Of course we had lookouts over by the Graves and in Haven but you chose to come by Canem, thankfully the watchers, on that new road you Balà had just finished building, saw you coming. You would not believe the relief we all felt knowing that you were almost here. Not Her, mind you, she knew you were getting nearer, doesn't she always know things like that. We notified her, of course we did, but she already knew, of course She did..."

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "The proper form of address is Admiral and Sir. Your highness was reserved for the emperors you cremated and who hunted my people down the breath and length of Rabatea." He had said it softly, without raising his voice but there had been a definite cutting edge in it and the soft humming of voices in the room stopped as they turned and stared at the newcomer they had been waiting for.

  The woman appeared unruffled and went on speaking as if he had not just told her off.

  "Right you are, very thoughtless of me, but all this waiting without knowing has driven us all on the edge. I wonder if someone has been sent to Her, she has to be told that your h... Admiral is finally here. She refused to say a word before you would be among us. I never knew you mattered so much. Of course you are one of the touched ones, some even say that the flower she gave you remains etched in your hand to this day. How long ago was that, I wonder. Not that I'd be rude enough to ask to see it but imagine having one of the flowers in one's hand, what one could accomplish with the faithful ones ..."

  Atacherel suddenly noticed that his fists were tightly closed and in the same moment, Cadish Pacore stopped talking to stare at the other side of the room like everybody else had. She had allowed herself inside through a small, nondescript door and was pulling it shut behind herself.

  It all faded back and vanished as if sucked up in a vacuum. The travel weariness, the nagging anger at the irritating woman, the pain in his knees and the slouch of his back. Even his eyes felt sharper and his senses so much more acute. It was her. Must come from her, this lightness, but it was more profound than that, it also happened inside his head: the turmoil of his thoughts was gone. His actions, justified, the judgments passed by others onto him rejected as biased, even the twenty years old harsh words of Merorae about his ordering the burning of some monastery melted and vanished leaving the little place it had been latched upon empty and clean. It was nigh on unbearable such levity of being.

  She was speaking: Her enemy had reached the world and safely came to a place in Feroll, it was near the feet of the Paroto mountains. Monks of the Triad had already come to its aid and it was now secluded on one of their most sacred islands. But what was most important was that on the very instant of its coming, the weapons that could destroy her had hatched and would mature over the following decade to be unstoppable. She needed them to help her destroy these, now that they were still hatchlings, weak and vulnerable. She pleaded for their help, and cried to be forced to ask such a thing of them. She knew all they already had done for her, the extent of their devotion and the love they have for her and She, She loved them too, each and every one of them but for their love to endure for this not be lost in fire and destruction, the weapons of the wanderer, three of them, had to be utterly destroyed.

  Atacherel, and all the others present were crying, they felt as if it was their own, the anguish, the vulnerability, the fear and the anger. It inflamed their minds that she, who loved them so very much, could be hunted so and persecuted, could be threatened and rough-handled in such a manner.

  ***

  The last rays of sunlight flooded the city council administrator's rooms as Atacherel was gingerly placing his seal at the top of the orders that he dictated an instant before. He had ordered all out of the room and read and reread the text before sitting back and thinking about the implications of what he was to set in motion. He was fully conscious that the weapons that had hatched on the forty-second day of this quarter were children and that upon his order, and because there was no way of knowing which ones it had been, the men and women of the intelligence network of the Balà fleet would begin killing new born babies. What does an eighty day old baby look like? The admiral wondered and tears silently rolled down his cheeks for he knew that many of those that would be killed, most, in fact, would have no relation with the Wanderer and his malevolent weapons.

  Was there to be no end to the violence, was there to always be a greater threat, a new danger to combat or measure to be taken to ward off more deaths and more violence?

  The wizened old man sobbed as softly as he could as the last of the light vanished from the windows and darkness engulfed his miserable self.