General Summary
Day 174
We depart Solace early and begin winding our way towards Council Rock. Amytri leads us on a new route that makes up for some of our lost time and we find ourselves travelling along ancient Imperial roads.
One such road leads to a massive, impressively built bridge spanning a large canyon. The drop is dizzying and the floor is littered with ruins. Amytri and I can both sense the defensive magic in the area, along with traps made by magic of motion that would speed a fall to terminal velocity much faster than you’d anticipate.
He tells us that it took him six days to hike down to the canyon floor once and there were beasts and traps that he thought it best to avoid. I can sense the magic of last life energy in its defenses...the magic of the Empress is strong here but it is tied to the lives that were spent - they may not recognize me as a fellow Imperial like the defenses in Deldrin.
Kadia looks sad as we pass over the bridge and admire the ruins. She says it was built by dwarves and elves and once the walls were lined with exposed precious metals, gems, and greenery. It wasn’t a powerful magical place or a place of import during the war, just a place for art and artists. Perhaps sometime in the next century between Lyssa and I, we can restore it to elves and dwarves once again.
Days 175 - 177
The next few days pass uneventfully. Stella is a blessing in helping Nina learn to fight. I enjoy smoking pipes and playing games with Amytri. It’s like the ghost of a future I might imagine for myself one day - surrounded by apprentices and lost in thought with a colleague about the effect of language on magical structure between cultures. Dwarven runic magic doesn’t even have words to conceptualize a gentle breeze - what would a Dwarvish weather mage do if asked to conjure that?
And I take the opportunity to pry at Amytri’s morals. The odds of us having been headed for Council Rock at the same time by coincidence are slim but I am not suspicious. I’d rather have a read on his heart than his exact doings at the plateau.
He tells me that people in Solace are happier than those outside because the rules of the city mean that people’s needs are met and they have opportunities. People who are not desperate are happier. People who have opportunities have the confidence to see the world as it is and not conform to faith in order to salve their desperation.
Our discussion turns to gods and he says something interesting: Gods are just beings who operate on a scale we never will. I think about what Magdalena told me that the Empress had asked her to teach me and help me grow into someone who could be responsible for our Empire if need be. What are gods, if mine has laid a path for me to rise if I must? And what is Magdalena, if she taught a god (or two? Maybe even more)?
These are personal mysteries, I think. Perhaps the sort of thing Amytri and I can discuss when current events have faded.
Another evening we philosophize about whether the end justifies the means. I find it hard to imagine a powerful person able to have this conversation without ghosts in the air. For me, battles and wars and horrible Collective generals chained in eternal torment. For Amytri, I’m sure there’s something as well.
He says no, not anymore. Once upon a time he might have said that the end does justify whatever it took to get there. Now, not so much.
Did you do the best you could with what you had? Were you kind, fair, and just? He asks me.
At the end of each conversation I feel assured. He’s someone I trust with the small secrets. I laugh to think of what counts as small nowadays. Yes, he can know about my war and my plans for the fae and trolls. Maybe even the dwarves. I might even tell him the secrets to growing a healthy orange tree. Maybe in half a century.
Day 178
We finally approach Council Rock unharassed by any stone guardians. Alder is the first to spot two human women waiting for us, armed with knives and a staff.
When we approach they introduce themselves as Alita and Brielle, servants of Drakken. We are informed that their master has graciously cleared the area of any guardians so we will not be troubled while we are here. And then they lead us to a camp of colourful tents and altogether too much pomp and circumstance. Well-dressed, competent-looking people bustle about with food and seemingly important tasks. The atmosphere is like some fancy elvish noble whose camp will never be attacked or over-run, nor dismantled in a hurry to mobilize. I have to assume this is meant to be a show of power and strength but it looks like turning up to a battle dressed in silk.
Amytri looks troubled as he examines the material of the tents. I wonder if he recognizes them from across the sea.
And then...Drakken greets us. And specifically greets Amytri as his father. I feel like I should have seen this coming…Apparently he asked his father to attend as a scribe for our presumptive accord.
To my grim delight, Amytri tells his son quite frankly that he is going to be eaten alive by me and that he is not ready for a seat at my table.
“You are meddling and you’re going to break things. You should go home and give my respects to your mother’s grave,” he says.
After a little more in-family jousting we retire to our own campsite (erected to our own standards) and Amytri gives us a more detailed explanation:
Across the sea he had led a rebellion against the power of the Six. Drakken, his son, was fifteen at the time. They lost and his wife died in the fight. Afterwards, Drakken gave himself into the service of the Master and gave up his hand for the power to protect his people and see his enemies fall. It was a step that Amytri never took, and Drakken saw him as weak for that.
When Amytri landed here on one of the first boats from the other side, he wandered until Magdalena found him and guided him for a bit. Now, Drakken has asked him to broker a treaty with an opponent, and he came.
He looks so much more tired than I’ve seen him yet.
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