Chapter Five Hundred and Thirty-Eight — Fortress of Solitude
Chapter Five Hundred and Thirty-Eight — Fortress of Solitude Celiga shifted in his seat. "I've mentioned how I started to look into the Black Avatars some time ago, yes? Well, initially there was a lot of scepticism, on my own part most of all. The last sightings are only a little over a hundred years ago. That means that... well, frankly speaking, that's recent history. That far back means that there are people still alive who might have been present.""So you asked them?" I wondered."Obviously," he said. "And they confirmed something for me. The idea that the Black Avatars are a myth doesn't make sense. There are so many pieces of circumstantial evidence, and so many people that encountered one or the other... it might be the kind of thing that gets surrounded by misconceptions over time, but the historical validity shouldn't be questioned.""And yet, it seems to be," Desiree mused."Exactly," Celiga said. He waved his pipe around. "I started to suspect a grand conspiracy, but if learning about history has taught me one thing, it's that conspiracies are rarely grand. They're usually out in the open. The 'open' in question just tends to be the open halls of a royal ballroom or a noble's parlour."Amaryllis snorted. "Conspiracy is what people on the outside call it when they're not aware of the people pulling the strings. Convenience is what you call it when those tugging the strings are peers."Celiga harrumphed. "Maybe, maybe so. In any case, there are other powerful groups out there that we know to be historical fact. The Band of the Owl Cloth, for example.""The who?" I asked."They're a band of cloth merchants turned explorers and adventurers," Celiga said. "Or rather, a group of the former hired by the latter. They explored and exploited a dozen dungeons at the foot of the Harpy Mountains some three hundred years ago and became quite rich from it before disbanding over some internal scuffle. Or the Order of the Southern Aurora.""Ah!" Desiree said. She stood up straighter. "I know of these.""You do?" I asked. Desiree often seemed to know ... well, about as much as I did, and I was literally from a different world. In her case, she was from some land across the ... southern ocean.I realized why she might know about this Southern Aurora Order thing at the same moment she started speaking."Yes," she replied with a nod. "They were a circle of wandering knights, set on reaching the far south. Were they foxkin such as I, surely there wouldn't be a single one without at least three tails upon them."Celiga stared at her for a moment. "The Order was a group of knights, mostly from Pyrowalk. Some of them went on to be founding members of the Mattergrove nobility. They also had a number of Ostri members. They're not well-known here, but they did leave their mark on the continent. Again, another group of high-levelled, multi-classed individuals from a long time ago.""Would the Paladins count as such as well?" Caprica asked with a glance towards Bastion.The historian nodded. "Of course. However, the Paladins are an existing organization. I could point to the Exploration Guild, or the Royal Guardians of Deepmarsh as well, but no one doubts that they exist because they're still active. The Order of the Southern Aurora and the Band of the Owl Cloth no longer exist, they're part of history, but their validity isn't questioned."Celiga gestured with his pipe like he was accusing an entire university class of unbelievable foolishness. "The Black Avatars should be just as accepted history, only they're considered a myth. It doesn't add up.""Hense your suspicion of a conspiracy," Amaryllis said."Ah, could it be something else?" Awen asked. A few of us turned her way, and she hesitated a moment before elaborating. "Um, see, that band and the order, they're important to a nation, and they have people who consider them ancestors. What if the Black Avatars aren't linked to any nation, and don't have, uh, children left."Celiga hummed. "A possibility. Some small organizations disappear and most mention of them fade away as well. The bakery two floors down isn't a national staple, and when it closes down one day, no one will remember their meat tarts.""That's kind of sad," I said."History remembers the big things and strange things," Celiga said. "Peaceful times are oft forgotten, though they are the best to live in. Ah, but yes, the Black Avatars. The conspiracy ld me to digging further. It felt, at times, like I was pitting my skills as a Historian against someone trying to disguise the truth.""And what did you find?" I asked."Earlier, I mentioned their ship, the Black Sail of the Lost Orient.""Yup," I said."Well, we were able to chart its comings and goings. Ports tend to have long memories and longer paper trails. A few letters sent to colleagues across the sea and we had a good picture of where the ship had been. Then one of my peers in the Endless Swells mentioned that if I wanted to find out more about the Black Avatars, I could just visit their old fortress.""They just... have a fortress?" Amaryllis asked. "We could have just flown there! It would have saved us all this questing around."Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website."That's how I felt!" Celiga said. "I was never angrier in my life. I packed my bags as soon as I confirmed its location, blew my research budget for the next three years hiring an airship, and took off.""Did you find it?" I asked.Celiga bit the end of his pipe and sat back down. "No. But also, yes."Amaryllis crossed her wings. "Can you be any less specific?"He nodded, then with a grunt of effort, stood. "I took pictures," he said. "We had a camera operator from the university with us. I have some of the originals here."We watched as Celiga looked around through some old books, then he returned with an album of sorts. It looked handmade, leatherbound and filled with photos clipped into pages. Opening it up, he leafed through a dozen photos, all in a sort of brownish-sepia colour, until he came about a full-page picture that he turned towards us.I leaned in.Curving along from one side of the photograph to the other was the shore of an island, or maybe a peninsula. Near the shoreline, a few small buildings were clustered around a lake. Small stone ones that looked like they belonged nest to a castle instead of this remote stretch of coastline."I don't often see lakes that are so ... squarish." Calamity frowned.Huh. He was right. The corners were all regular right angles."I think ..." Awen started. "I think this was a ... basement? Did someone demolish the building on top of it?"It kind of did look that way. An irregular, square-cut lake, with edges that looked like they could be stone blocks draped in overgrowth. Some of the buildings even ran right up to the edge, like they were once part of something greater."What are we looking at, exactly?" Caprica asked."This is on a small island just off the northern coast of the Silverstar Forest. Not too far from the city of Southerfell," he explained. "The people of Southerfell have their own myths and stories about the Black Avatars, including how the Avatars purchased a great deal of stone and furniture and hired some locals to work on some grand project that they were sworn to secrecy about.""Wait," Calamity said. "Are nya saying that they built themselves a big old fortress and then it... what, poofed one morning?""Close enough," Celiga said. "The story goes that one day, a great storm began to brew around the island. As the winds turned harsh, fishermen came to shore for safety, and families sought shelter in their houses. But a few brave souls kept watch, waiting for the storm to either end or worsen. And so they saw, illuminated by the flash of lightning, the vast fortress of the Black Avatars shift against the gloom. It was merely a dark shape amidst the driving rain, but still they witnessed it rise up into the swirling clouds, never to be seen again."The historian puffed on his pipe."All those witnesses were quite old by the time I interviewed them, of course. But they all swore that's what happened. And other islanders agree that the fortress vanished after a great storm.""Impossible," Amaryllis said. "Trust me, I know how much lift would be required for such a thing. A fortress, made of stone? You'd need ... well it depends on the size of the fortress. But it would be some ridiculous number like a thousand of the best lift engines in the world. Modern lift engines-so even more if you're using the garbage that they had back then. That's bad enough, but the fuel requirements would be obscene. Where would they even get it? They'd need some giant secret refinery, then tankers to transport it... and the balloon! It would be the size of an island, and of course it would be torn apart by the storm you're describing."Celiga tapped the edge of the photograph. "I would agree with you, Lady Amaryllis. By every current measure we have, such a feat should be impossible. And yet, there is evidence that something did happen.""What kind of evidence?" I asked.He smiled thinly. "The hole. If you examine the surrounding stone, you'll notice cut marks, clean ones. The sort is only made by careful construction, not by natural erosion or a collapse. The foundation stones are still there, precisely where they would need to be to support a fortress. It's as if the entire structure was lifted clean off its base."Amaryllis scowled, her wings rustling behind her. "Or it was dismantled block by block."Celiga nodded slowly. "That would be the logical conclusion. Except there are no records of any such deconstruction, no debris-not even on the seabed, I had a hydromancer check-no ruins beyond what you see here. And the legends are strangely consistent, even in neighbouring towns.""I don't care if you were an eyewitness yourself, that's not possible with current technologies," Amaryllis said. "I'm not dismissing it as entirely impossible. There are methods of flight that are not yet understood, natural spells more efficient than what modern mages can reproduce exist, but... but it sounds exceptionally far-fetched to the point of stretching credulity beyond the breaking point."I was a little more inclined to believe that it was true, though. After all, I lived on a flying boat, which was also impossible back home, so a flying fortress? Why not? That sounded awesome! "Can you give us the coordinates to that island?" I asked. "Maybe we can go see for ourselves?"
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Chapter Five Hundred and Thirty-Nine — Our Separate Ways
Chapter Five Hundred and Thirty-Nine — Our Separate Ways "Did you want to come with us?" I asked.It was probably... definitely a little premature. We hadn't agreed that we'd be going out to visit that island yet, but I was going to try to convince my friends to go and check it out, at least. Still, if we did go, maybe Celiga would want to come?The old grenoil chewed on the end of his pipe while eyeing me carefully. "If you had asked me just five years ago, I'd be packing my bags," he said."Do you have something else planned?" Awen asked."No," he said. "But neither do I have the energy of a young tadpole. I... appreciate your visit. It's been some time since I was able to enjoy teaching some history, even if it's on such a strange subject.""Are you sure?" I asked. "You seem like the kind of person that would make a good friend!"Celiga Duport-PercierDreams: To leave a legacy in the art of History that he can be proud of.Desired Quality: Someone who will listen."I'm sure," he said. "I have a few accounts to settle here, in Deepmarsh." he reached over and touched a stack of papers on one of the end tables nearby. He chuckled. "Actually, I think your visit cleared the cobwebs a little. I've been drinking myself towards an early grave. I still have a bit of kick left in me, and I intend to aim that towards a few backsides.""I see," Caprica said. "Well, I wish you the best of luck.""You might be better off sending that kick towards the Harpy Mountains. I can't imagine it'll come out well here," Amaryllis said."Good point," he said. "Maybe I will make one final trip after all. Call it a last big vacation and an early retirement. That'll wag a few tongues, but I think the people that have it out for me might back off on hearing it."I wasn't sure what was going on, or what they meant, but I did get the feeling that our time here was coming to an end.I thanked Celiga, then took the dishes he had laying around to his kitchen... and since no one was looking, I blasted the place with some Cleaning magic. His sink was so messy, and there were old cobwebs all over and a layer of dust on his shelves. The historian was starting to look like history. Or at least his home was.We thanked him at length, then made our departure, which is when I turned towards Caprica and Amaryllis to ask. "What was that about, in the end, about kicks and stuff?""Oh, that," Caprica said. "It seems like the old historian wants to go out with a bang, as it were. I imagine that he's stumbled across a lot of inconvenient facts. Some of these he likely published which earned him the trouble he's in now, the forced retirement and such. But I imagine he's kept just as many secrets to himself.""And now," Amaryllis continued. "With no career to maintain, and the community turning against him, he has nothing to lose. No more bridges to burn. It would be impossible to publish those ideas here in Deepmarsh, but in the Harpy Mountains, well ... a new book appears, published by a famous historian after he fled the persecution of one of our rivaling nations; a book filled with salacious indelicacies that skewers the decadent foreign nobility. I'm sure it would sell ... sensationally." She grinned. "Especially if, now that he is beyond the reach of his rivals, he rakes them over the coals. They'll seethe.""Oh, that's, uh, not very nice," I said."The world of academia isn't very nice, Broccoli," Amaryllis said. "I'd rather deal with pirates than academics. At least the pirates only stab you."I pursed my lips, but didn't say anything about it. I supposed Celiga was allowed to do that kind of thing, if he wanted to. "What about the island?" I asked."I'm down for that," Calamity said. "Big ol' mysterious island sounds neat, and I've never seen the sea from up close before. I heard there's fish in there, and fish are delicious.""I have, and I believe that you have yet to learn of the fear and respect even a sea deserves," Desiree said. "But yes, I would also like to take part in this voyage. A fortress that took flight one fine stormy day seems like an interesting story."Bastion cleared his throat.We all turned to look at him, but his gaze was fixed on Caprica... or the back of Caprica's head, as she was very pointedly not looking in his direction. "I'm somewhat well-read when it comes to cartography, and I couldn't help but notice that the coordinates to this island that historian Celiga gave are very much to the west of here."Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings."Far to the west, yes," Amaryllis said. "About four day's flight, assuming the winds aren't counter to us.""Four days west, which is about four days of flying in the opposite direction as Sylphfree," he said."We never came to any specific agreement with regards to when, exactly, I'd be returning to Sylphfree," Caprica said."It was implied," he said."Implications only matter in flirting, and you weren't flirting with me-unfortunately-you were pressing me to return home," Caprica said. She crossed her arms and raised her princessly nostrils up.I clapped my hands. "We should talk about it over supper!" I declared. Food had a way of bringing people together, and maybe that's what we needed?I wasn't afraid to admit that I was afraid of losing my friends. If Caprica left, then so would Bastion, and that would leave a big hole in our crew, wouldn't it? I made a mental note to talk to her later, once we were back at the Beaver.Fortunately (or unfortunately) the issue was postponed by talking about food, at least for a little bit. There was an argument brewing amongst my friends, with two camps. One was headed by Amaryllis, and the other, surprisingly, by Awen.Amaryllis wanted to find a nice harpy restaurant. She said that there had to be one somewhere in the capital city, and that at least there we'd be able to eat normal food. Well, normal harpy food.Awen's camp was more about trying out some of the local stuff, since we were here. We'd tried some grenoil things in Port Royal, but not frequently, and this was the biggest city in the nation. They had to have some really good cooks and great local dishes too!I was happy to eat anything-well, I guess I'd like to avoid bugs. Unfortunately, the grenoil really did like their bugs. Oh, and I also needed to avoid meat because buns weren't great at handling meat. But! Other than that, I was sure whatever food we found would be amazing.So, I stayed out of the argument, and cheered on both sides to keep their morale up. That earned me a huff from Amaryllis, which I considered a win.We mostly just ended up walking around, getting lost in the big building we were in, then stopping by the first food place we found, which happened to be a slightly-pricey restaurant on the topmost floor of one of the buildings. It was fusion cuisine, which really just meant that the place was run by a couple, one a grenoil, the other an ostri, and they were trying to remake local foods with a bit more of a spicy kick to them.It was a bit of a lot of spice for me. My Canadian palate was more... sugars and sweets, and less desert spices and what might have been insect meat. If I didn't ask, then I would never know and it would be fine.I still tried a bit of everything, and was impressed by Awen's ability to eat food so spicy that just smelling it made my eyes water.Calamity put on a brave face, but he was crying by the end.We lingered there a while, watching the sun start to dip through the windows. Deepmarsh was still lit with that heavy golden glow that came before dusk, and for a moment, it was peaceful. The tension that had been brewing between everyone seemed to mellow, just a little, under the comfort of a shared meal.Eventually, we paid our bill-thanks to Caprica's bottomless royal purse-and stepped back out into the streets, full and a little tired. The kind of tiredness that comes after a long talk and a lot of thinking.We made our way back to the Beaver Cleaver at an easy pace, our bellies full and our minds still half-occupied with spices and quiet thoughts. Deepmarsh's corridor-streets were quieter now, the day's bustle dimming into the soft murmur of evening.By the time we reached the ship, the lights were on inside and the gangplank was lowered, as if the Beaver had been waiting for us, just like always."Hey, Caprica?" I asked, stepping up beside her.She glanced over, one eyebrow raised."Do you think we could talk later? Just the two of us?"She didn't answer right away. For a second I thought she might say no, or do that royal thing where she pretended I hadn't said anything at all. But then she gave me a small nod."I'd like that," she said. "Later tonight?""Perfect," I said, even though my stomach twisted a little. I wasn't sure what I was going to say yet, but I figured I'd come up with something.
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