Chapter Two:

Ky awoke suddenly, as was his wont when he was in a strange place. Normally, in fact, he suffered from insomnia when sleeping in a bed that was not his own, but he had fallen asleep practically as soon as his head had struck the pillow of the bed in the guest room in Mars’ home. He supposed that his journey had worn him out. He sat up and looked around his quarters, for he had seen before turning in that he had a bathroom of his own, as well as a small study; he recalled that the general color of Mars’ home was gold, but here the gold was broken up with a shade of teal that matched perfectly the trim of his uniform; the upholstery of the chair next to the bed, the bedclothes, a perfect match. Ky wondered if Mars had caused these rooms to be created after meeting him and Orochi; she had explained, once she had returned from the Council and met them for dinner, that while she was a fighter, she was also of the bloodline of the Founders. Her home was built over her line’s traditional nexus of power within Nitaru, and within it, it obeyed her will. Ky doubted that she had a room handy that matched what he had worn yesterday, and assumed she had created it yesterday.

Ky shook his head, clearing the dream from his mind-it was already fading, as dreams did-and he got moving. He found that the bathroom had a sizable and rather luxurious bathtub-after a decade and a half of barracks showers during his training, he found any bathtub to be a luxury-but he took as quick a bath as possible, grinning when he noticed that all the towels were teal. His clothing, he found, had been hung up in a closet or laid in a dresser made of the same dark wood that all the wood in the home was composed of; someone had been dedicated, he thought. One of his suitcases remained closed, and Ky knew why; of all the luggage he had, this one had a combination lock, the lock protected from the Art by a charm. Orochi had one case like this as well; within were the two thought-engines, the devices that they would use to communicate with Avantasia. It was standard practice for Seikishidan abroad to take with them thought-engines, Gilead’s greatest technical achievement; under no circumstance was Ky to lose the device. If Ky had been given a choice, he would have taken this case with him to the Council meeting, though, within a Domain, there was precious little an Artist couldn’t make themselves aware of. They probably know every circuit within it already, he thought. Assembling them is another question.

In the closet were the four uniforms that he had brought with him; on a whim, he dressed in the only one that did not match the one he had worn yesterday, this one trimmed in black. He regarded himself in the mirror behind the dresser and thought I really hope Mars wasn’t color coordinating my rooms with my uniform; she might get irked. As if the thought summoned her-not a wholly unreasonable thought in the place of power of an Artist-a knock came on the door and Mars called, "Are you awake, Sir Kiske?"

Ky buckled on his sword belt and walked over to the door, unlocking it. Mars stood there, in the same gear she had worn the day before, Lucifel on her hip. She looked up at him and if she noticed the change in uniform, she did not respond. "I see that you are awake. Your companion has been awake for some time; she’s down in the den. I thought we might meet there and decide our first move against the Templar."

"That depends wholly on what Avantasia has to say." He stepped into the hallway, pulling the door shut. "I can’t promise that Gilead won’t send more Seikishidan."

Mars considered that, then shrugged. "We’ll deal with that when the time comes. It would be simpler if you and Orochi are allowed to deal with this issue; between the three of us no fighter alive can stand, right?"

"I trust that there’s a certain amount of sarcasm there, Lady Mars?"

She smiled at him. "Perhaps. Listen, we really don’t stand on ceremony here-you can call me Mars, if I may call you Ky." He nodded. "Very well then; let’s go to Orochi and we’ll see what our first step is to be." She walked down the hall, and after a moment Ky followed. He had not yet given much thought to what they were going to do to draw the Templar out-in fact, he was not yet fully convinced that a Templar was involved, especially this close to Gilead. He was wholly convinced that once Misawa heard of possible Templar involvement, he would take this mission away from him. Ky found he did not want to lose this mission; despite the responsibility, the pressure, this was what he had trained for. He was born to do this; he just hoped he would be allowed to.

Mars’ home, he recalled, was a fairly modest two story affair of indeterminate architectural design; it had some similarities to some of the Aeuropan architecture that he had seen, mostly in books, but there were elements of the gentle sweep of Nihon, the marital air of Albion. It was as if Mars had subliminally included aspects of the different nations that made up the background of the Circle of the Bloody Moon, her trainers. Strangely, however, within the house it seemed that it was much bigger on the inside than on the outside; though when he looked up as they descended a spiral staircase that lead to the…Ky supposed it was the foyer…the ceiling above was not all that high. He set it aside as Mars led him into a room, a wider, more open space than the one that the Founders had met in, but of similar style. Surrounding the room, like sentinels watching silently over them, were suits of armor on racks, each one of considerable age, bearing a sword between gauntleted hands. Ky realized that each suit, six in total, dated from over a thousand years ago, and his surprise must have been apparent in his face, for Mars said, "We found them during an expedition to the vaults last year. Being the resident warrior, they were given to me. They’re not exactly my thing, but they impress the Civic Guard when they meet me here."

Ky nodded, but resisted the urge to inspect them, though he was certain at least two of the suits were at least twelve hundred years old, and instead turned his attention to the rest of the room. He found Orochi sitting in a chair, matching the general red color scheme of the rest of the furnishings in Mars’ home, in front of a desk composed of the same dark wood as the rest of the house, sipping on a cup of tea. "Good morning, Ky. Did you sleep well?" Her sword, Bloodthorn, leaned against the chair, in easy reach. "Or at least better than night before last?"

Ky hoped he did not blush at Orochi’s jibe about Embla and took the seat beside of her. As he let his arms fall against the armrest, he let his fingers tap in a quick movement. Orochi’s expression did not change, and in fact her eyes were on Mars as she took her place behind the desk. Presently she put her cup on the corner of the desk, sat back, and crossed her arms. The fingers of her right hand tapped against her other arm, and Ky was not entirely reassured. They had both just spoken to each other in code, one based on the keyboards used to enter data into thought-engines in Gilead; each finger represented a place on the keyboard, the number of taps the row. More importantly, the language used was one of the twenty battle languages of Gilead, so even if one deduced the basis for the code, what the words were was gibberish if you did not know the language. What Ky had asked Orochi was if she had made contact with Avantasia-she being far more competent with thought-engines and their technomancy-based systems-and her reply was yes, investigate further but report daily. Ky sent back who had sent the order, and Orochi quickly tapped out Misawa. Ky pondered this as Mars spoke again. "So, where do we start, exactly?" she began.

Ky looked at Orochi, who clearly was willing to let him lead. "The obvious place, of course. We pay Hikari and her researchers a visit. Partly because I want to see what she’s discovered with my own eyes, and partly-"

"You hope two Seikishidan snooping around will scare the daylights out of our spy?"

Ky shook his head. "This person isn’t scared of the power that Nitaru holds, Mars. Two Knights of the Cross won’t rattle him. But the thought that Gilead might get their hands on this information will definitely concern our Templar-assuming that it is a Templar."

"True." Mars leaned back in her chair, her slight stature making her look, for a moment, less like a warrior than a girl playing around in her mother’s office. "That might be what our foe wants us to think. It’s unlikely-masquerading as a Black Templar near Gilead is rather foolish-but one never knows, does one?" She closed her eyes for a moment, and Ky felt her power surge for a bit. "There. It’s arranged. Sephira and Strawberry will meet us at the Library…Sakkariah has other, erm, issues, to detain her."

Ky did not want to know what that meant, so he decided to discuss more ordinary matters. "I don’t suppose there’s time for me to eat? Pardon my late rising, but there are some things a man can’t live without."

Mars smiled. "Well, I had already made breakfast for us ladies-I am quite the cook when I set my mind to it-but for you sleepy men, perhaps you can make a bowl of cereal or something."

Ky shook his head and said, "A man never can get ahead in this world."

"He can if he knows how to cook," Orochi replied.

In her place of power-which, like all four of the residences of the Council, sat precisely one mile from the central tower, each one on a point of the compass-Sephira opened her eyes, having digested Mars’ thoughtcast. So it begins, she thought, somewhat unnecessarily. In truth, it had begun the day before, when the Seikishidan had arrived from Gilead, but now it began in truth. The actions they were taking had to be taken-in fact, they were preordained to occur, if Sakkariah was correct-but that did not mean that she enjoyed having to take them. The thought that someone wished ill against Nitaru, wished to use what they had uncovered for their own purposes, disturbed her greatly. She lay back on her bed, having received the thoughtcast from Mars in her private chambers, and thought for a moment. Nitaru was unlike any other Domain she knew of; while it shared many principles and philosophies with Jumi, by nature of being the largest and most powerful Domain in Nor ‘Am, practicality sometimes overcame the good intentions of the Lumineux. It remained a fact that in sheer numbers the Jumi Knights actually outnumbered the Angel Host; Jumi was a power in war as much as in peace. Nitaru was different; it had been founded solely to enrich the lives of others, built upon a policy of equality for all who lived there but more importantly equal consideration for those who did not live there. Nitaru did not seek domination over others, nor, like some Artists, did the Artists here seek to prove that their style or methodology in magic was superior to others. Nitaru was supposed to be different.

And yet, she mused, here we are, plotting against enemies, calling deadly warriors to aid us, acting out of vested self interest. Her mother, and her grandmother, the First Founder of Nitaru, had long ago warned her that the utopian dream of Nitaru would someday have to face the harsh realities of the world; that their principles would someday, inevitably, be tested. That day had come, and for a moment, she wished it could have waited for her to be more than sixteen years old. Then she set aside her doubts, rose to her feet, and created a cloak out of the very air. She wrapped it around her slim form, then focused her power, searching for the focal point within the flux at the Library that was her destination. With a flick of her mind, she opened a pathway through the flux, and she performed an act called transference; she moved herself from her residence to the Library in a blink of an eye. There weren’t many in the Domains that could do this; within Nitaru, only she, Strawberry, Sakkariah, and Mars could do it with accuracy and range. It was times like this, when she moved herself a distance of miles in a heartbeat, that she loved her power. She knew that it was this power that had that gave her the responsibilities she had, which she had just brooded over; that was the paradox of magic, the price one paid for it. She cast aside her philosophical brooding and went to find Hikari.

Strawberry had been walking in the gardens behind her home, which was two miles due east of Sephira’s (Mars and Sakkariah shared the north-south axis around the tower), when Mars had spoken to her. The Council had debated the matter of how to deal with events for long hours after Ky and Orochi had left them, always keeping in mind what Sakkariah had seen in her visions, but basically it had come down to taking events as they came. Strawberry found that a bit amusing, that for all their power they had to simply react, just like normal folks.

The gardens-they were not truly her gardens, for they had been grown by her aunt, during her mother’s tenure as Second Founder-were a peaceful place, yet Strawberry did not go there for the calm, or even the beauty she saw there. She went there because the design of the garden, or so her aunt claimed, was a puzzle, that the stone paths the cut through it, the vines that hung down, the angle of the thorns that sprouted from the stems of the black roses that her aunt had bred via the Art, formed a pattern that could be sensed. When Strawberry was troubled, and despite her outwardly cheerful demeanor, she was troubled, she went to the garden and tried to figure out what her aunt had meant. It continued to elude her, though for one moment, staring at a row of potted plants set at odd little angles against each other, she nearly thought she sensed…some shape, some pattern to the garden. She wondered, as she built her power for transference, if perhaps her aunt had merely been playing with her in order to preserve the garden. Her family did have an unusual sense of humor at times, after all. She laughed and let herself flow towards the Library. She sensed Sephira was already there, and that reminded her of the fact that Sakkariah had been going to join them as well, but not long after dawn she had thoughtcast the rest of the Council and had told them she was looking into a matter that disturbed her in dreams. I hope it isn’t related to this mess, whatever it is, Strawberry thought. We have enough problems as it is.

In her inner sanctum, as she liked to call it (with a certain degree of sarcasm, though it did serve the purpose of allowing her privacy) Sakkariah sat cross-legged within a pentacle of silver, her eyes shut.

The room was a perfect circle, the inner wall in fact serving as the boundary of the pentacle. There was no way into the room save transference, which for most Artists was somewhat dangerous. Sakkariah had erected many protective wards that served as redundancy for her instinct to escape. Her rituals, her workings, all possessed a certain degree of risk for not only herself but others around her. If the wards she placed sensed that she was in danger, and she had many triggers built into them from her heartbeat to the energy patterns of her aura, the wards would literally drag her from the room and into another one, one designed to cut her off from the flux and close any magickal connection she had. To leave that room, she needed only walk out a door. Her preparations were careful and she hoped she had left nothing to chance…not that she was doing anything too dangerous today. Around the walls were shelves holding her grimoires, her magickal texts and scrolls, and much to the dismay of some of the Artists in Nitaru that practiced the White Arts, several cages holding rats, lizards, birds, and other small animals. After all, the Darker Paths were best fueled by blood, though on this day, no sacrifice was needed.

Sakkariah’s dreams the night before had been troubled, which was not unusual for an Artist of any stripe; but one of her gifts was the gift of prophecy, of divination of the future through both ritual and the Sight, as some called it. When the Aeuropan mercenaries had attacked Nitaru, trying to gain the paratext Hikari had created, Sakkariah had decided to divine the future to see what path could be taken. She had possessed enough material at hand for a divination-the bodies of the men who had failed in their mission-and she had already learned what she could by raising the shade of their leader. It had been gruesome, bloody work, but eventually she had seen what there was to see. That had been the first step to summoning aid from Gilead, in the manner that they had done.

But now, now Sakkariah was disturbed. Her dreams, which sometimes had the manner of unguided prophecy, had been filled with a sense that some…presence…was there, watching them. A presence interested in events that were unfolding here, on Nitaru. She had sensed its eyes upon her, even as she had dreamed normal dreams that had no greater meaning. So she had told the others to let her be alone for a time, and she had transferred here, to meditate upon her dreams and try to find out if they were connected to their current difficulties, a new one to come, or something personal. After all, there was more than one spirit of the Void that she had balked in her time, and sometimes they took defeat with all the grace of a child who was a sore loser at playground games. Sakkariah focused her will on the dagger that lay in her lap, the blade that was her constant companion in all her rituals, and itself a conduit of magic, and tried to determine what had troubled her so.

The Library, Mars explained to Ky and Orochi, was actually something of a misnomer.

A great deal of the city of Nitaru itself was devoted to the study of the Art, either through the vast amount of scrolls and texts that had been collected over the past fifty years. A great many of the texts had been recovered from the vaults on the neighboring islands, chiefly from the largest vault on the island known as Nocturnus. While there was a single repository, which was the Library proper, the actual campus of the schools devoted to the study of the Art was much bigger. The two dozen buildings that composed the campus were connected via the flux, enabling an Artist to draw from the central repository whatever text they needed, or a copy of that data if it was already in use. "So, in a sense," Mars said, "all of the school complex is the Library itself, and so is called that. But we’re going to the actual Library, the central repository."

Ky was not certain he understood all of that, but he got the general gist of it; the crystalline structure that a driver from the Civic Guard (not Kristof this time, which he pointed out to Orochi solely to see her response) took the three of them to was only part of the Library. The Library was composed of crystal, Mars explained as they entered, because that served as a conduit for the broadcast of information through the flux. It had the unintended effect of making the Library look like a sculpture of ice, glittering underneath the mid-morning sun. Once within the Library, however, the appearance reverted to close to normal. Inside, the crystal arched overhead, climbing to an apex overhead as if one was within a mountain of glass. Built inside that structure was a series of walls that created hallways, private offices, and dividers for the differing sections of the repository. Each room, Mars explained as they walked, was devoted to the storage of a different classification of the Art; Ky looked into one and saw what appeared to be bookshelves, endless rows of bookshelves. He wondered if they were real or a magical representation of how the texts were stored. Around them shuttled the people of Nitaru, many dressed in what reminded Ky and Orochi of the uniforms they had worn during their classes at the Academy of Combat. Logic suggested they were students of Nitaru’s schools of the Art, and a quick question of Mars confirmed that.

Eventually-it seemed as if they walked for over a half mile, even though the Library had not looked that big-Mars reached a door in a wall of crystal that reached towards the roof. Written on the door were runes that Ky could not read, and, seeing his attempt to read them, Mars said, "It more or less means "Hikari’s Laboratory." She rapped the wall with a gloved hand. "Only those properly attuned with the frequency of the rooms created for this project can sense them. You and Orochi are sharing that gift with me." Well, that cuts down the number of suspects on who the spy is, now doesn’t it, Ky thought. Mars laid her hand against the door, and it sprang open obediently. Ky was somehow less that surprised to find that the space inside was relatively small, perhaps twenty-five feet square, all four walls covered by bookshelves filled with texts and scrolls. The furnishings were a series of tables and simple chairs. Sephira and Strawberry were there, standing behind Hikari, who was sitting in at a table, this time with only one document before her. Daimira was there as well, leafing through texts on one of the shelves, as was one other man.

Ky was not a person to judge based on first impressions-it was a mistake to do so as a fighter, for strengths could be hidden and power masked-but there was something just…wrong about the man who stood just behind Sephira and Strawberry. Perhaps it was the long, messy, dark hair that fell in his face, or the cluttered look to the outfit he wore, which was a masculine version of Daimira’s pantsuit and likely a uniform of some sort here in Nitaru, topped off with a decidedly unfashionable string tie in a gaudy clasp.

Or perhaps it was the way, once he saw them enter, how his eyes lingered on first Mars’, then Orochi’s chests.

Ky repressed an urge to sigh, or apologize for his gender, as Sephira spoke. "Hello, Ky, Orochi. You have a pleasant night?"

"The night was fine," Ky said. "I can’t say much for Mars’ hospitality towards late risers in her home, however."

Strawberry grinned. "Made him eat cereal, didn’t you?"

Sephira reclaimed control of the conversation before it got out of hand; Ky was reminded less of rulers of a powerful land as he was a group of young friends having fun before school got started. "At any rate, before we get started, Ky, Orochi, you know everyone here but this gentleman." She turned and indicated the man with a wave. "This is Gunderson, one of Hikari’s assistants on this project."

Gunderson looked from Ky to Orochi before he said, "Welcome to Nitaru, Sir Kiske, Lady Orochi. I am an expert on pre-Domains ideography, though not on the level of Hikari I’m afraid." His voice was deep, which contrasted with his general appearance greatly.

"From what I hear, few in Nitaru are on Hikari’s level," Orochi said, taking a seat at the table opposite of Hikari’s. "So, is that the paratext?"

Hikari looked up at Orochi and smiled. "You’re direct. Or perhaps tired of not having the whole picture explained to you?"

"A bit of both, Hikari."

"Well then…no, actually, this isn’t the paratext. This is something a bit more simple, and at the same time complex. You see, while we told you everything in general terms yesterday, there were details left out. Chief among them, the obvious one; if we have evidence that the Books of the First Cataclysm are in the vaults, most likely on Nocturnus, and the vaults were emptied long ago, how can the Books still be here?"

"The thought had occurred to me," Ky replied. "I assume you have an answer for this?"

"Well, not an exact answer, but a possibility." Hikari lifted the document in front of her enough to show that it was a map, showing a vast number of boxes interconnected by lines. "This is a map of the locations of the vaults on Nocturnus. Every single one of these vaults has been searched countless times by physical search and the Art; as Mars may have explained to you, my research room, though not the data that I access, is hidden by way of spells. That just widened the number of suspects a bit, Ky thought. "But we have searched for such workings within the vaults and found nothing."

"And yet the paratext you’re working on insists something is there?" Orochi asked.

"Oh, yes. And I believe that the answer we seek is also part of the paratext. Gunderson?"

Gunderson coughed, as if he had not been expected to speak, and said "Daimira assists Hikari on the runes relating to the magical aspects of the Books, the binding and defining runes. My field of expertise is a bit more practical; runes that point to physical locations."

"My head is starting to hurt," Ky said.

Mars patted him on top of his head. "It’ll make sense once Hika explains it about ten times. Ladies, I’ve heard this before, and I have some work to do with the Guard, so I’ll be leaving." She turned and walked to the door and, strangely, rather than open it, she passed through it. Ky wondered if that was how it looked every time one left, or if Mars had been in a hurry. Ky decided that really did not matter and returned his attention to Hikari.

"Gunderson and me discovered that amongst the embedded runes were ones that served not to define magical power, but physical location; a grid of sorts within the Nocturnus vaults. We believe that they point to the location of the Books. Unfortunately, we’ll need the entire text to complete the directions. We were just using the map to determine likely locations within the vaults."

Orochi scowled. "But if the vaults have been mapped, shouldn’t you be able to find them fairly easily?"

Hikari’s expression was blank for a moment, and then realization struck her. "Oh, I’m sorry, we didn’t really explain it all that well. The geographic grid we’re creating isn’t in three dimensions, it’s in four."

Ky sighed. "My head is definitely going to hurt before this is over."

"It’s really not that difficult," Hikari explained. "We believe that the vault that holds the Books is within the boundaries of the vaults on Nocturnus, merely one dimension over. And before you say that didn’t help, I’m sure that you’re aware how more technically inclined sorcerers think the universe is structured."

"Yes." Orochi leaned forward. "They believe that the universe is constructed of, well, layers, for lack of a better word. The same space, but composed of different dimensions separated by time, or vibration, or such, depending on the theory."

"More or less. The Void, the space that holds the demons and spirits that Artists can summon, is another dimension that is concurrent with our world." Hikari studied the map before her. "I think the dimension involved here is time…the hiding place of the vaults is within the vaults of Nocturnus, but a few seconds out of phase with our time."

"So, could the Books be stored in an actual vault, just in another dimension?" Ky asked.

"You catch on fast, Ky," Hikari said. "That’s possible, but the Brotherhood, as far as we can judge, were hiding the Books even from those who used the vaults back then."

Daimira spoke up. "The paratext we’re creating is a strange document, Ky. It appears to be not only a locator for the Books, as well as a binder, but a history for whomever from the Brotherhood came for them. The odd thing is, until we assemble it totally, we won’t be able to know the whole story-that’s the nature of this paratext."

Sephira and Strawberry had been, Ky noticed, watching both him and Orochi intently, most likely, he mused, because they had expected them to be terribly lost. He decided to involve them in this. "How much trouble would it be for us to see these actual vaults?"

Strawberry frowned. "Why would you want to do that? They’re just empty vaults under the surface of a desert island."

"I have my reasons, Strawberry."

Strawberry exchanged a glance with Sephira, then said, "If you want to, then there’s no reason why not. You have your airship, after all."

Ky did not have a plan so much as he was trying as much as he could think of that would draw the Templar out of hiding. He was acting on instinct, and was in fact grateful that Orochi was following his lead; she was, after all, his equal in the Seikishidan, but she preferred to let others lead while she observed. "So I do. But I was thinking that perhaps some of you could come with us."

Ky had to admit, he enjoyed the expression that crossed the faces of everyone in the room. Finally, Sephira, still as confused as the others, asked, "What good would that do?"

"It would do a great deal of good, but I would prefer to keep this private."

Sephira nodded to herself, then strolled over to him and said, "I hope you aren’t a person prone to a fear of heights." She touched him on the head with the staff she carried, and again he sensed a force within the staff, one that was alive. Before he could consider what it was, the world turned into a blur around him…

…and suddenly the room was gone, replaced by the sky.

For a moment, Ky thought that he was hovering somewhere, and he grew dizzy, for all he saw was the blue of the sky, a few clouds blown on the wind; then he felt something under foot and looked around. He and Sephira were standing on something, circular in shape, with many runes and symbols carved in it in strange designs. He found that he could see to the horizon from where he was, and he suspected he knew where he was before Sephira said, "Sorry, but the Tower is the closest place I could think of to send us that no one would possibly walk in on us."

"We’re on top of the Tower then?" he asked. He had never transferred before, though he had seen it done at Jumi. "Label me impressed."

She smiled at him. "Okay, so I might have been able to find a place to go nearer. But I like being here, at the tower my grandmother and the other Founders raised. Helps me think, you know." She grew more serious. "All right, Ky, what are you planning?"

"Planning? Nothing specific. But I don’t know anything about magic, or even how your library works. About all I can do is hit things."

"I think you underestimate yourself."

"Perhaps. But at any rate, I don’t know how things work. Perhaps someone found this information independently of Hikari, or somehow accessed it without being part of the research team."

Sephira considered this. Ky was struck by the dichotomy here-she was so young, younger than he had been when he qualified to attempt to become a Seikishidan, and yet she was one of four people responsible for all of the lives in Nitaru. Strange world we live in. "That could be, Ky. We pride ourselves on how open we are here, even though that’s a weakness that can be exploited. Someone could do that, I guess."

"Which means that possibly we could search for ages and never find the spy. And the clock is ticking…Orochi and I made a pretty public arrival, and…" A thought occurred to him, something clicking into place in his head. "That’s why the Civic Guard made such a display about our arrival, isn’t it? We’re bait."

Sephira took a deep breath before she said, "I told you, you underestimate yourself. Yes, Ky. Though we believe that Gilead could be endangered if a Templar finds the Books, one of the functions of you being here was to draw the Templar out." She hoped he would not be upset, or angry at her and the others. She would certainly understand why.

Ky, amazingly enough, grinned at her. "So, you understand why I want us to go to the vaults then. It’s the sort of thing that might draw the enemy out."

Sephira laughed. "So we’re all bait, Ky?"

"Pretty much. We’ll look into the spy angle more…in fact, I suggest that Orochi do that, she is smarter than me. I’ll look for something to hit."

"It makes sense. I will have to include Strawberry, Mars, and Sakkariah in the discussion, but I believe we will be able to visit Nocturnus on the morrow, as they say." She raised her staff again. "Now let’s get back before people begin to talk."

Ky nodded, and prepared for the jarring transition of transference once again. All things considered, it was going well; at any rate, Ky did not want to be the person who found himself facing the sort of power that Sephira and the others had. Which did not, of course, mean that people would not try.

Not all of Nitaru was devoted to the study of magic, naturally; in many districts of the city, things were much as they were in so-called "normal" cities in the rest of the world. There were shops, businesses that sold essentials, restaurants, inns, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, taverns. Most of these businesses catered to the traders who visited Nitaru from Nor ‘Am, and in planning the city the Founders had wisely centralized them, the better to keep foreigners in one location. A great many of the taverns and inns were located in an area around a central square just beyond the airship field and the docks, less than a mile from the headquarters of the Guard. This was to allow the Guard the ability to rapidly respond to any incident that arose there, though usually that amounted only to deal with the odd brawl that cropped up in a tavern. It also allowed many of the Guard, when they were off duty, to visit the taverns there to relax. Many of the Guard were patrons of a tavern with the unlikely name of the Shining Wizard; it was run by a retired member of the Guard, who provided Guardsmen with generous discounts for their drinks. As a result, it tended to be crowded, and a place where one went if one was looking for a member of the Guard.

Of course, Foxfire mused from his table at the back of the main room, it was not all that hard to keep track of Kristof with that damnable hat on his head.

Kristof navigated his way back from the bar, a pitcher of a locally brewed beer in one hand, two glasses in the other. His hat was at a crooked angle, most likely from pushing his way through the hordes besieging the bar, and he was wearing his customary grin. He deposited the pitcher and the two glasses on the table in front of Foxfire and said, "Now let me tell you, I truly enjoy being squashed into the bar by a crowd. A fascinating experience." He adjusted his hat, then sat down in his chair, opposite of Foxfire. "Next time, Commander, you go."

"Rank has its privileges, Captain. Among them ordering my subordinates to get beer."

"I’ll remember that the next time an underling comes by." Foxfire poured them both beers, and Kristof took his and drank. "So, Foxfire, any contact with our visitors today?" he asked.

"The Seikishidan? Not since that dog and pony show we put on yesterday for their arrival."

"Where your legendary charms failed to impress Lady Orochi," Kristof replied.

"My charms, Kristof, work slowly but effectively."

"Yes, but you won’t live long enough for it to work with most women."

Foxfire laughed. "Don’t point out the weak point of my plan. Actually, I had an interesting conversation with Neu before I came over here. She called over the short-wave radio and said she was on her way to her daily training with Lady Mars."

"Fascinating," Kristof drawled sarcastically.

"Let me finish, you buffoon. Anyway, Neu said that Mars hinted to her that she would have orders to deliver to us…which, I assume, Neu will give when she gets here." Neu was one of ten members of the Guard that Mars had selected to be trained in her unique fighting style, fighters with the ability to use the Art. Foxfire, like most of the Guard, had an intellectual knowledge of the Art, but he could not manipulate the flux as Neu could. "So mind your beer, Kristof. We could be busy tomorrow."

"When don’t I mind my beer?" Kristof asked. He polished off his glass with one drink and poured another.

"All right, then, don’t drink too much beer. We got in enough trouble the last time we were here."

Kristof coughed into his hand. "That wasn’t me drinking too much, Foxfire, that was you. You were the one that offended that airship pilot."

"How was I supposed to know that when she asked me if I was interested in a low level fly by, she meant with her airship?" Foxfire asked.

"Or that her brother was the local deputy head of the Trader’s Guild?" Kristof wondered.

"Exactly! I maintain my innocence. So to speak." He took a drink. "Anyway, no craziness tonight. That’s an order."

"I’ll do my best to carry out your wishes, sir."

The two were still working on the first pitcher-though it was something of an effort for them, used as they were to drinking a lot more in the run of a night-when Neu arrived. She wore the same uniform as Foxfire and Kristof did, but it was crimson and black, rather than blue, indicating her affiliation with Mars as her trainer. The first thing one noticed about her was her distinctive hairstyle, with three angular bangs falling across her face. She regarded Foxfire and Kristof with a wry smile and said, "Have you been busy?"

"No incidents so far, oh lovely Neu." Foxfire indicated a chair beside of him. "Take a seat and regale us with tales of what Lady Mars expects of us."

"I should wear hip boots," Kristof said sardonically, "to deal with the speeches you give the ladies, sir."

Neu took her seat, one hand resting on the hilt of her sword, a slender, curved blade in the fashion of Nihon. "I’ll get to the point, Commander. Lady Mars told me that a minor expedition is being mounted to Nocturnus tomorrow."

"Nocturnus? The largest of the vault islands?" Foxfire scowled. "Define ‘expedition’, Neu."

"Not too large in numbers, but very large in terms of importance." Neu thought about what Mars had told her after their sparring session had ended just an hour ago. Mars trained her most promising students, the few that wore her colors of crimson and black, in a gymnasium constructed specially for that purpose by Mars herself. Neu had actually been surprised that she had been selected-she had always possessed an affinity for the Art, but she had seen that as a weakness in a fighter. Mars had other ideas though. Today’s lesson had been on using elemental attack spells in combat, imparting an elemental quality onto her blade and hurling it at the target. Fortunately, the training areas were wrapped in permanently self-sustaining interdiction fields, or else Neu would have set the gymnasium on fire. Afterwards, Mars had told her that the Council had met via thought-cast, and they had decided to travel to Nocturnus at the request of the Seikishidan. "They seem to think that there are answers there," Mars had explained, "and so we’ll be going with them." Mars had told her who was going, and frankly Neu was surprised. She certainly knew Foxfire would be surprised. "The Council, the two from Gilead, and Lady Hikari will be going there."

"All of the Council?" Foxfire asked in wonder. "Have they ever traveled anywhere all at once?"

"So far as I know, no. There have been times when all four of them have been away from Nitaru, but never in the same spot. It’s practically begging for trouble."

"For whoever attacks them," Kristof said. "I mean, we are talking about the four most powerful Artists in Nitaru, right? Plus two Seikishidan. What kind of foe could take all of them?"

Foxfire brooded. "I would hate to find out." He rose to his feet. "All right, there goes our night on the town. Neu, Kristof, I want the best that we’ve got, assembled at the airfield tomorrow at dawn. One…no, make that two companies of the Guard. Neu will command one company, Kristof the other."

"Should we bring any others that Mars is training?" Neu asked.

Foxfire considered it. "Bring Enii. Assign the others to guard duty on the critical areas of the city, and double the watch everywhere else. Nitaru is as vulnerable as they are while they’re gone."

Kristof finished off his beer and grinned widely. "Strawberry will soon be facing the hat."

"You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t incinerate the damned thing," Neu said with a smile.

"She just doesn’t have my sense of the absurd," Kristof replied.

It had been, Mars thought, a busy day.

For the better part of the day, as she had gone through her duties of training the Guard, her mind had been as busy as her body, in constant mental contact with Sephira and Strawberry throughout the afternoon. She had witnessed the remainder of the meeting with Ky, Orochi, and the others second hand, and then had discussed with Strawberry and Sephira Ky’s request. It was not uncommon for the Founders to do such things, to multi-task as the Mechanics called it, but this was one of the busiest days yet. Ky Kiske had quickly seen the truth of his role in Nitaru, and more importantly had turned that at them, forcing all of them to be the bait that the Seikishidan had been intended to be. Things were proceeding at a far faster pace than Mars had ever expected them to, and her day was not yet done.

Orochi had taken over the task of attempting to find who had tipped off the Templar to the existence of the paratext; she had spent the entire day at the Library, working with Hikari and Daimira on the problem. It was a bit harder to accomplish than the Council had surmised; while Hikari’s assembled research was only accessible to a few, the data that she had generated it from was accessible to all. It was possible that someone else could have come to the same conclusions that Hikari had independently; Orochi was looking into the mechanisms of the Library in hopes of finding if someone had done just that. In her soul, Mars suspected that someone assigned to the project had done it, but that limited the suspects to Hikari, Daimira, and Gunderson, and none of them seemed likely. She had a personal distaste for Gunderson, who tended to view women as objects, but that did not make him a traitor. Orochi was currently in her room, using her thought-engine (Mars and the others were already aware that the Seikishidan had such machines, but let them be; there was nothing in Nitaru that she, Sephira, Strawberry, and Sakkariah could not know if they set their minds to it.) to work through the data she had assembled, searching for patterns that could point to a traitor.

That left Ky, and Mars’ last duty of the day.

She found Ky in her study, sitting in the same chair he had been in that morning, his expression thoughtful. His sword rested against the chair, and she wondered what was on his mind. He looked up at her and smiled. "Hectic day, wasn’t it?"

"It isn’t over yet," she replied. "I still have my personal training to attend to, and then I have to look over the preparations the Guard are making for your trip to Nocturnus."

"You train every day, Mars?"

"Of course. It’s the best way to remain strong. I doubt it compares to the training that you underwent at Avantasia, but it suffices."

Ky rose to his feet and made things easier for her; he picked up his sword and said, "I would be interested in seeing how the Bloody Moon trains its fighters. May I come with you?"

She smiled. "I find I prefer to spar as to train against the empty air, Ky. If you come with me, expect to be a target."

Ky laughed. "I will be as unwilling a target as I can be." He had expected for Mars to try to test his strength, and in fact, he was curious as to how strong she was. He had never met someone trained by the Circle of the Bloody Moon, let alone one who was an Artist; it would prove to be interesting. "Where will we go?"

"Well, I have a gymnasium that I built with the Art for training the Guard, but I find that a bit restrictive. Which is why I have a personal training room here in my home." She walked over to Ky and put a hand on his shoulder. "Sephira told me she transferred you earlier, so you should be used to this."

"I doubt I’ll ever get used to this," he joked as she concentrated and the world went away for an instant. When it returned, Ky was standing in an endless space, a white void only broken by the racks of weapons just to his left. "Nor to this," he said. "What is this?"

"This is my training room," Mars said. "It’s-well, complicated. Technically, we’re still inside my home. This is an area of what Hikari would call void-space, an area created by my power and wrapped in anti-entropic fields. Time is a little different here, though not too much so. I can warp time here so I can gain a day in an hour. Much further strains the fabric of my home."

"So you can spend a day here and it only be an hour outside?"

"In extreme cases. Normally I keep the room in the same time frame as everywhere else. The room is wrapped in self-sustaining interdiction fields and also self-sustaining healing spells. Any injury here is healed instantly. Helpful for sprains and the like." Mars drew Lucifel and assumed a stance, one to best take advantage of her armored left arm. "Shall we begin?"

"What are the rules?" Ky asked.

She smiled. "Well, normally I would say none. But there’s no sense in wasting our energies here if we have to fight tomorrow. No ki or energy attacks. Just blade to blade." That will be enough to judge your skill by; I’ll have to guess your power level from that. I just wish I knew why Sakkariah thinks he alone can save us, even with her visions.

Ky drew Thundercross and let it point at the ground, a casual stance that was actually part of the Misawa forms. He had partly been hoping for her to go more all out, but she was right; their fighting power was better spent against an enemy than each other. "I’ll try to be a good target," he called.

Mars did not reply, just attacked, moving in a blur of motion that had to be what was called by the Seikishidan by the name bukuu-jutsu, the so-called "lighter than air skill"; using one’s energy to boost speed. Ky whipped Thundercross up and parried a series of strikes that came in a second, so fast that the normal human could not see it. He turned to his left, staying on the defensive as Mars rained blows at him. Very good, very fast, he thought. Ky blocked her sword, then smashed it up high and swung at her in a flat arc; she raised her left arm and deflected the strike, which caused her to dig her feet in. She struggled against the force Ky was applying with her arm, but he did not move. She swung downward with Lucifel, and Ky applied a bit of bukuu-jutsu of his own, appearing suddenly behind her.

Mars let the physics of the situation take over; the force she had placed against his sword carried her forward, and she struck out with a kick that Ky leaped over. She spun and brought up her sword just as Ky swung at her with an over-handed blow. Now Ky was on the attack, his sword a flash of light that she was pressed to stop with Lucifel. He’s pretty strong, and fast, but he hasn’t seen everything I have yet.

Ky drove her back for a bit, then disengaged, leaping back ten feet. "Am I proving to be a reluctant target, Mars?" he asked.

Mars grinned, then drove Lucifel into the ground in front of her. "You’re pretty good, Kiske. As strong as I expected one of Gilead to be." She reached over to her left arm and unbuckled the straps that held the armor over her upper arm, then let it fall to the ground. It hit with an audible, and rather sizable crashing sound. "Most people prefer lighter armor for speed. I prefer heavier armor for the speed it grants me when I don’t wear it." She removed all of her armor down to her boots, each piece, Ky saw, being very thick and rather heavy. To his power sense, her "at-rest" level, the base she was using her, rose. "When you’re fast wearing one hundred and fifty pounds of armor, how fast are you without it?"

"I’m about to find out, aren’t I?" Ky asked.

Yes, if only to drive you to actually use your power, Mars thought. She reclaimed Lucifel from the floor and attacked without warning, at least twice as fast as she had been before. Ky fell back, his sword weaving in front of him in increasingly complex patterns of defense. He was forced to draw on his power to keep up with her, though he could not crack her defenses without going deeper into his power. He was quite impressed; she was the equal, easily, of a Seikishidan. With a burst of speed, she drove his sword aside and placed the point of it against his chest. "In a duel, you would be defeated, Sir Kiske," she said.

"So I would, Mars." He sheathed Thundercross and took a step back. "I’m impressed at your skill."

She slid Lucifel back into its scabbard and regarded him. "I’m impressed at your ability to hide your own power, Ky. Do you think I’m so weak that I can not deal with your true strength?"

Ky shook his head. "I prefer to show my true strength to my enemies, Mars. And you’d be surprised at how much of my ability it took to stand up to your speed; there are instructors in Avantasia that could learn a thing or two from you."

"Thank you-though I doubt that you speak truly." She walked over to him and took his hand. "Come on, let’s get out of here; I have things to do." She transferred them to what Ky recognized as the door to his rooms. "It was a pleasure dueling you, though it was short." She turned on her heel and walked away. Ky opened the door and found, to his amusement, that the décor now matched his current uniform. Pinned to the inside of the door was a note, written in a feminine hand that read: Quite frankly, Ky, black is not your color. Ky laughed, and closed the door.

In her rooms, Orochi had sensed, for a moment, the sparring session between Ky and Mars, and she was happy that Ky had not shown too much of his power. There were things, she thought as she bent back over the thought-engine on her lap-she was sitting on her bed, wearing a nightshirt-that Nitaru did not need to know about the training systems at Avantasia in general, and Ky Kiske’s in particular. She typed up the situation report for the day, telling of the meeting with the Council at the Library, Ky’s decision to visit the vaults, and her own investigations into the Library and who could have betrayed Nitaru. She had no solid leads yet, and in fact part of her was hoping that Ky’s path of using themselves as bait would provide a lead first; as much as she liked intellectual pursuits, she was a swordmaiden of Gilead. She liked a good fight as much as anyone, after all.

She typed up the report, then re-typed it in the encrypted code for the day, then made it ready to be sent. She was not an expert on how the technomantic elements of the thought-engine turned the text she had written into energy that could be transmitted through the flux to be reassembled by another thought engine; she just knew that it worked. She sent the report, then set the thought-engine aside on the night stand and laid back on her bed. Tomorrow looked to be a busy day, she mused.

That sentiment was shared by others on the island.

Gunderson’s quarters were simple, bare, which suited him best under the circumstances; he spent little time there, especially these days, when Hikari worked them so hard trying to find out the truth of the paratext. He arrived home after ten o’clock, so tired that he did not have time to even eat; he dropped a group of texts, unrelated to the main project, on his desk, then undressed and quickly went to bed. His last thoughts were on the rather pleasant curves of the girl from Gilead, which, he was forced to admit, was a weakness of his; he admired women perhaps too much. Still, he hoped she was able to find out who had stolen the information on Hikari’s work; whomever it was, he thought as sleep claimed him, he would pay.

Gunderson slept for fifteen minutes, then he awoke suddenly, throwing back the covers with a rapid movement. His eyes narrowed into focused glints, and everything about his demeanor changed. He smiled, a hunter’s smile, pleased that Aesgir’s workings continued to hide him. For virtually all of the time, Olav Kloften, loyal Templar and servant of Aesgir Haroy, did not exist; he was buried in the magical creation that was the personality of Gunderson. Gunderson had no conception that Kloften existed; he had a carefully crafted fictional life, memories to draw upon, an entire existence. Kloften was one of dozens of Templars that had infiltrated, years ago, the places of learning across Nor ‘Am and Aeuropa, seeking the key to the power that would enable the Templar Brotherhood to destroy the hated Seikishidan of Gilead. He had blundered into the project trying to find the Books of the First Cataclysm by chance, when Gunderson’s skills had been needed to read runes dealing with location; Kloften, within Gunderson, was more or less programmed to reappear when information that was useful to the Brotherhood came up. The Books of the First Cataclysm, the texts created by the ones that had shown the Templars the truth about the traitorous Seikishidan, certainly qualifed. The beauty of the scheme was that anything Kloften did was not recalled by Gunderson, so no matter of scanning by Artists could uncover it. All the Council would get from Gunderson was his nagging habit of judging women by their bustline, nothing more.

Kloften could access the memories of Gunderson, and he reviewed them; the arrival of the Seikishidan, the investigation, the planned journey to Nocturnus that Hikari and the Council were taking tomorrow. The last, Kloften thought, was so obviously a trap that he scoffed at it. Still, Haroy would have to be notified; he liked to be kept well informed, after all. And he had more means to deal with his enemies than just Aeuropan mercenaries, Kloften knew.

Kloften laid his hand on his chest, eyes closed, lips mumbling a chant. Light flared from between his fingers, and he pulled his hand away, the light forming a globe in his hand. Still chanting, he held the globe out at arm’s length, and it began to take shape, becoming a raven. This was a working used by most Artists to send messages when one did not feel like taking the time to directly thoughtcast, and at any given time hundreds could be in the air, representations of the messages being sent from person to person. The best part was, the message ceased to exist if intercepted, so if by chance it went to the wrong person, it was not surprising if it vanished. Kloften filled the working with the message he wished to send to Haroy, including the memories of Gunderson. Satisfied, he said "Go," and the raven bolted out of his hand and through the wall, already fading into the flux signatures that powered Nitaru. He smiled and regretted that Hikari had things for Gunderson to do tomorrow; it would be interesting to see Haroy’s response. He returned to bed, knowing that when he awoke again, Gunderson would be back, with no memory of the Templar he was or the power that he wielded, and that was for the best.

The raven flew across the towers of Nitaru, unnoticed by anyone, bearing a message to its dark master; seeking only to accomplish its task and deliver the message. That the raven was setting into motion a pattern of death was, of course, beyond the working, for it was merely a spell. The problem was, the man who had sent the working cared not for what he did, only for his cause.

To the west, along the path of the raven, dark ships were massed, waiting for the word to move towards Nitaru.

To be continued…