Broken Lands

Chapter 403 – Goodbye, Mazehold

Dav led the Gauzewing Monarch on a merry chase, repeatedly “narrowly escaping” being captured again through the intervention of one of the other Flying Stars. It was a show that was only possible because of the mindlink; they were able to call out when they were in position and Dav would slow down or curve to allow the Gauzewing Monarch to catch up and start to engulf him, only for one or another of them to zoom in close enough that it shied away.

Sophia fully expected it to be exciting the first time. By the fourth, it ought to be obvious there was no real danger and continuing would quickly become boring, so they shifted to the next phase: lots of butterflies. The fifth time the Gauzewing Monarch nearly caught up with Dav, Jax dropped from above quickly enough to stab into its side and cause it to shatter into butterflies. He split to the left while Dav split to the right, trying to confuse the Gauzewing about which to follow in the hope that it would slow down its transformation back into the flying sheet.

The audience was supposed to watch the butterflies and the two figures who were “endangered” by them. They were not supposed to pay as much attention to Sophia as she paced the Gauzewing Monarch from above and carefully watched the mana shift as the butterflies sprang into existence to try to predict the initial location of the miniature gauzewing. They were also not supposed to pay attention to Ci’an as she flew behind the butterflies to find it with her excellent eyesight; they were working together to locate it as quickly as possible. 

They were supposed to pay attention to Xin’ri as she lit up the sky in different colors to cause entirely new reflections off the butterflies and then sent a pulsing ball of light to bounce off the Gauzewing Monarch as it reformed. The audience couldn’t see it, but the ball was warm as well as bright; they weren’t certain which would be more likely to attract the Gauzewing Monarch’s attention, since it hunted live prey. It “harried” the somewhat confused monster, distracting it so that both Dav and Jax could make a clean escape this time. 

When the Gauzewing Monarch snapped closed around the ball, Dav shot forward far faster than he’d moved while “running away” and sliced a long gash in its side before it popped into butterflies and revealed that the ball of light hadn’t survived the encounter. 

That time, Sophia thought she saw it; there was a shift in the creature’s mana that concentrated a little to the left of center, away from Dav. She sent the location to Ci’an, who took a long moment before she sent back, “Found it! Just before it reconstituted. I think I can find it faster next time.”

“Right. Get ready.” Sophia reached out to Cliff and had him summon an Echo, one of the large ones, then sent her flying down to near the ground. She’d circle a little behind and well below Ci’an. Unlike the main combatants, she wasn’t lit up, so the crowd would probably lose track of her, even though she was visible by the light that reflected off her pale wings. “Good when you are.”

Xin’ri manifested three new balls of warm light and sent them on a twisting path to get the monster’s attention. It reacted exactly as they wanted, reorienting now that there was something that seemed to make sense to it and flying off after them as if they looked like tasty snacks. 

“I’m in position,” Dav reported. 

“Go.” Ci’an’s command was simple, but she had the hardest job in this particular exhibition.

Dav zipped forward again and cut an even larger slash before the monster vanished into butterflies.

Sophia watched carefully, then called out what she saw. “On the far right, a little forward of the middle.”

Ci’an’s answer was a simple arrow with a steel head, sent arcing towards the miniature gauzewing as she fell from the sky, wingless in her human shape. The fall ended moments after it began as she landed roughly on the back of a pale-feathered dragon that began to glow as Xin’ri redirected some of her light to surround it.

At almost the same moment, the arrow scythed through the miniature gauzewing, slicing it in two. The butterflies slowed and started to fall towards the ground, glittering in the light. Their descent was slowed by infrequent wingbeats until they landed in a large cluster covering most of one side of the Arena. Sophia and her team followed, carefully landing in the part of the Arena with fewer butterflies. 

The Arena announcer shouted about their triumph, but Sophia tuned him out. “Ci’an, are you all right? I still think you should have landed on my Echo before you shifted.”

“Pulled a muscle when I landed,” Ci’an groaned. “I’m looking forward to Dav’s healing. Other than that, I’m fine. I could have done it; we were high enough I could have shot and still shifted back to Nightowl.”

“And deprive the crowd of the spectacle?” Dav shook his head and chuckled. “Perish the thought. I think I’m with Sophia, though; I think standing on the Echo while you shot the mini gauzewing would have been impressive enough.”

Now that Sophia knew to look for it, the fact that Jax checked with Xin’ri to confirm she was unharmed before he checked on Ci’an took on a whole new meaning. She wasn’t sure how she missed it before; she’d simply thought of it as normal, that they were good friends. 

The main exit from the Arena floor that didn’t head up into the stands led directly past the medical area for obvious reasons. Sophia intended to walk past it, but a single word stopped her and made her divert towards it: her name. She turned quickly, surprised by the man who waited in the doorway. “Arak? What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk to you before we left Mazehold, and this seemed the best way. Please, follow me; this isn’t the place.” Arak Shade took them left instead of right, through one of the unmarked doors, then up a short flight of steps into a windowless but comfortably furnished room. 

Sophia hadn’t been in that particular room, but she recognized the layout; there were a number of similar rooms scattered around the Arena. They could be reserved to use for planning or preparation and some teams commonly reserved them on days when they had a match. The Flying Stars generally didn’t bother; they planned their matches at home and were happy to sit in the stands and watch others while they waited for their match to begin.

Arak gave them all a moment to get situated before he started. “Sophia, what are your plans? I don’t mean heading through the Gateway, I mean for the Tower and all of the Broken Lands. I’ve been preparing for the trip and it got me thinking. Once you leave, what happens?”

Sophia frowned. She’d talked about that, hadn’t she?

Oh, right. She’d talked about it with Arryn and her team, but Arak Shade wasn’t there. 

“It shouldn’t matter. I can still tell the Tower what to work on. Right now, it’s creating Challenge seeds that will be planted at Nexuses without a stable Challenge.” It was the obvious next step, but Cliff had informed her of an issue that hadn’t occurred to her when she picked the option: he couldn’t tell which Nexuses were inhabited and which weren’t. He couldn’t even tell where they were, which made it impossible to use a map to help, even if Sophia could get a good enough map. All he could tell was whether there was an attached stable Challenge or not. The only reassuring thing was that an extra stable Challenge in a place without people wouldn’t be that much different from any other Challenge. 

“I’m aiming for one stable Challenge at each Nexus, which should be every city. It won’t help smaller settlements, but anywhere the mana level is unusually low or unusually high for the area should count. After that, there’s supposed to be some way to add a beacon to stable Challenges. It will take some time, too, but something that will make them easier to find seems worthwhile.” For now, the beacons would become more and more obvious based on how long it had been since the stable Challenge was attempted. That meant they’d cost more mana but it also made them easier to find if no one knew where they were. She’d probably end up adjusting it later, once she knew more about it; all she knew now was that Cliff said it was a possibility locked behind creating the first batch of Challenge seeds. 

“Once that’s done, I’m going to see what the Tower can do to start repairing the Maze. There are a couple of reasons for that; getting to the Gateways is the one Arryn’s the most interested in, but it’s also probably necessary if I want the Tower to take people at the third upgrade, maybe even for the second. I think everything in the Maze really belongs in the Tower, which means that it needs to be cleaned up. It took a long time to fail, though, so it’ll probably take a really long time to clean up. I doubt I’ll get it all done in one go; it should be done in steps, so that other stuff can happen too.” Sophia wasn’t yet sure what that “other stuff” would be. There were a number of choices already and Cliff said that more would appear as they progressed. He couldn’t see the ones that would be affected by repairing the Broken Lands, either, so they were a mystery.

“That’s good, but it’s not what I meant.” Arak nodded slowly as he spoke. “You’re not planning to come back. That’s fine, but who’s your heir? Who will make decisions when you’re not here? For that matter, can anyone else help with the Imperial Spheres? I can’t take one, but I’ve spoken to quite a few people with them and they say that they can see upgrade paths that show them what to do to reach the next upgrade, even if it’s the third upgrade. It’s like the Registry’s knowledge has been approved by the Guide somehow. You won’t be here to work on it, so who will be?”

Sophia blinked. No one had mentioned the Spheres to her, so she really hadn’t looked at them again since they left the Imperial Hall in the Maze. She wasn’t sure if she could assign someone else to work on them, but it seemed like she ought to be able to. The problem was that she had no idea who. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to think about it. I know I can modify the Spheres, but it’s pretty crude. I think I’ll look for a Sphere that specializes in it somehow; it seems like that ought to be a specialist’s task. As for a heir, uh. Right now, no one qualifies; you heard what Ansuz said.”

Arak nodded. “Think about it anyway. I also heard what Ansuz said, and it sounded like there might be ways to work around the requirements. Even if you can’t have an heir, you might be able to set up some people to manage things while you’re gone. Whatever those things might be.”

Sophia nodded. It was a good idea, even though most of the people she really trusted were going with her. The only person she could think of who wasn’t going that she might be willing to hand over the reins to was Sweetfire, and he had even less free time than she did.

“Do you have any idea what’s on the other side of the Gateway?” Arak changed the subject. “I’ve been preparing like it’s an expedition, but if there’s something I should bring that I haven’t or that isn’t worth the space …?”

Sophia shook her head. “I checked with Ansuz, and the Archons came here rather than people from Kestii going there. The records are really limited; all they say is that the Gateway leads out of a giant tree, and that could easily have changed.”

They’d be heading through that Gateway in about half a day. Sophia couldn’t wait.