12. Between Worlds

> “The Ascension opened our eyes to the possibilities of multiple planes of existence, but why stop at two? Why not three, or four, or a thousand? Formulate the basic proof of the existence of at least three planes of existence. Show your working.” - D’varshan Geometry Exam Question

Throna directed Athena to stand on the black circle in the centre of the aeserium lenses. She peered through a much smaller lens mounted on a stand.

“Hmm,” she said.

“What?” Athena asked.

“Nothing,” she said, “Not even a hint of a bond.”

“A bond?”

“To the mortal plane. The aeserium in your body is unentangled. Pure, we call it. There’s no counterpart of carbon.”

“So it won’t work?” Athena asked.

“I can’t see how it will,” Throna said, “Not without something to tune in to.”

Athena closed her eyes in despair. Did that mean she was trapped in the Wastelands forever? That Lucathar had won? Let’s face it, she thought to herself, he’s already won, and I’m kidding myself if I think I’ve got any chance of fighting him. I’ve no followers, no power, and no way back.

She opened her eyes. The room around her had vanished and she stood in what at first sight looked like the Wastelands again, except it wasn’t quite the same. Something about the colour of the rocks and dirt, and the sky was pitch black. Even the smell was different.

She turned around and saw a figure sitting cross-legged on the rocky ground.

“You!” she said, pointing at the familiar figure standing before her.

It was the old woman that she had met when she had appeared in the Wastelands. Except, standing up, she didn’t look quite so old. Was she back where she had started? The ground around her was rocky, flat, stretched as far as the eye could see, but the sky above was darker than even the darkest night she had experienced in the Wasteland. Yet, despite there being no light source, somehow she could see perfectly. The Wasteland, the old woman, and the hand that she held out in front of her were all as visible as if they stood in bright sunlight.

“I’m back in the Wastelands again?” she said, “How is this possible?”

“It’s not the Wastelands,,” the old woman said, smiling. Athena looked around for any feature that might give her a clue. The rocks had a slight blue hue, but with the sky so black she couldn’t understand how she could see it, let alone the old woman.

“Shall we call you Blacksky, while you’re here?” the old woman continued, chuckling to herself. “Wouldn’t want to use your real name in a place like this.”

Athena wondered how she knew her newly adopted Wasteland name of Greysky, but it was one of the least important things she wanted to ask her.

“Where are we?”

“Do you know how you got here?” the woman asked, ignoring her question.

“The D’varsha were trying to send me back to the mortal plane.”

“That’s a ‘no’, then. You know the events that led up to it, but you don’t know how you got here.”

Athena reluctantly agreed.

“How did I get here? It seems too much of a coincidence that you’re here to meet me. Did you bring me here? What are you?”

“I had nothing to do with it, but you’re right it’s not a coincidence. I knew you were going to be here, although I’ve been waiting a while. Just like I’ll have to wait in the Wastelands. It’s the problem with knowing that something’s going to happen, but not quite when.”

“So meeting you there wasn’t a coincidence either?”

“No. We’ve only met by accident once, but that hasn’t happened yet, for you anyway. But I didn’t bring you here any more than I brought you to the Wastelands. You being here is the result of an accident waiting to happen, which won’t mean anything to you… Explaining this kind of thing to mortals is so hard.”

“But I’m not mortal.”

The old woman looked at her.

“The cut on your forehead says otherwise. But don’t worry: you’re not stuck in this place. You’ll be back in the Wastelands soon enough.” She sucked air in through her teeth. “A place where you do seem to be stuck.”

“How do I get out of the Wastelands? I need to find a way back to the mortal world?” Athena had a feeling the old woman knew a lot more than she was letting on.

“The D’varshan portal won’t send you back. Nor will the Elthenian equivalent, if you ever see it. You’ve no roots in the mortal world, and there’s no way to send you at all, in fact.”

“So I’m stuck there?”

“No, but you need to be pulled through the barrier, not pushed.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

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“As I said: this is always hard to explain to mortals. One thing is sure: you will find a way back. I know, because I’ve met you there already. Or at least I think it was you.”

“But we first met in the Wastelands.” She was sure she’d remember meeting the old woman if she had before, no matter how long ago it might have been.

“No, after that… or before that, depending on your point of view… Just take my word for it.” The old woman looked down at the ground and Athena followed her gaze. A sparkle of blue near her feet caught her eye and she bent and picked it up. It was like a gemstone, but opaque, and a faint blue, almost glowing, in the same way aeserium seemed to have a red hue radiating from an inner power source.

“It’s aetherium,” the old woman said.

“Aetherium? What’s aetherium?”

Her head spun and she felt as if she was about to fall. She closed her eyes to steady herself, clenching her fists tightly as if to keep a grip on the world.

“Find Igrisil. She’s an Elemental. She’s in the Wastelands. She will help you,” the old woman said above the ringing in Athena’s ears.

“Igrisil…” Athena repeated as her head spun.

“Athena!” a voice that wasn’t the old woman said. She opened her eyes to see Ostri running across the room just as she began to fall. He caught her before she hit the ground.

“How… I’m back here again?” she said, looking around at the portal room.

“Back? You never left. Throna couldn’t get any kind of a fix. I don’t know what happened but you looked as if you were about to pass out.” He scratched his chin. “I’ve never seen an Aeseri pass out before.”

“How long was I out for?” she asked. She was shaking and felt weak. Ostri lowered her gently to the ground.

“Not even for a second.”

It felt like more than a second. She looked down at her fist, still clenched, remembering the blue stone she had held, and felt something crumble within her fingers.

She opened her hand. There was no blue-tinted stone, but her hand was coated in a reddish dust that glowed faintly in the dim light. Ostri looked down at her palm.

“Is that aeserium?” Throna asked, emerging from behind her devices, “Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know,” Athena said, which was half true. A minute ago it had been aetherium, the old woman had said. “Does the name Igrisil mean anything to you?”

Ostri said nothing, his face expressionless, but Thronin’s surprise was obvious even to Athena.

“How do you know that name?” Throna asked.

“What do you know about her?” Athena asked her, pushing herself to her feet and standing, with Ostri’s aid.

“I know Igrisil is a fugitive.”

“Who from? The D’varsha?”

“No, although we would like to find her. A fugitive from Lucathar.”

“Lucathar? Why?”

“She was working on transmuting aeserium into carbon, right here on the astral plane, and vice versa, transmuting carbon into aeserium in the mortal plane.”

“So she’s in the Wastelands somewhere?”

“As far as anyone knows, yes, unless she has another way of moving back to the mortal plane. If she succeeded in her experiments then she may have.”

This was why the old woman had told her to seek Igrisil: she had a way to return to the mortal world. Throna’s portal had failed because of something to do with the bond between carbon and aeserium, so if Igrisil had a solution to that then there was hope for Athena.

“So there could be another way back to the mortal plane?” she asked the D’varshan pair.

Throna shrugged.

“We don’t know. Igrisil fled, taking all her work with her and destroying what she couldn’t carry. Some say she succeeded and, realising how powerful it would be, she concluded that Lucathar could not be given the secret. Others say she never found the secret and feared Lucathar’s punishment, deciding to flee before he discovered she had failed.”

“And what do you think?” Athena asked her.

“I think what she was attempting is impossible. Carbon is unstable in this universe. Aeserium is unstable in the mortal universe. They’re mirrors of each other. One exists on one side, and its reflection exists on the other. A reflection can’t pass through a mirror.”

She shrugged again as if she expected Athena to understand that it was the only possible explanation, but Athena was only barely following the train of reason, let alone in possession of enough knowledge to question it.

“And what if you’re wrong? What if she succeeded? What power was Lucathar after?”

“If you could transform carbon into aeserium in the mortal plane it would be simple to move anything from there to here. Technology, weapons, anything living or dead… But the reverse is much worse.”

“How so?”

“Aeserium runs through all of us here, but through the Aeseri in particular. It’s what makes you immortal, in the Citadel at least. If the aeserium in your bodies could be turned to carbon, and carbon can be broken, then he would have power of life and death over every Aeseri.”

Athena thought for a second. Lucathar had so much power in the mortal plane that many of the Aeseri had already pledged allegiance to him. It was a choice between fealty or exile in the Wastelands, and no Aeseri wanted that. It was just a question of how much they were willing to compromise to avoid it and, as she had discovered, many Aeseri were willing to compromise every value they had ever held.

“If aeserium runs through everything here,” Athena asked, “Then how are the Aeseri so much harder to kill than other species? Is there more aeserium in us, or is there something else?”

“We don’t know why, but there’s something about the Tower in the centre of the Citadel. You seem to have a bond to it and it gives you power that others lack. We haven’t found an explanation for it.”

“Lucathar certainly seems obsessed with getting inside the Tower,” Athena mused out loud, “He’s been working at the walls for centuries but as far as I can see with no result.”

“What do you mean?” Throna said, her expression turning to shock.

“He’s obsessed with it. Just before I was vanquished to the Wastelands he said something about the Elementals learning a new trick and… could that be it?”

“That he knows how to breach the Tower?”

“If he could, he would have done it. But the Tower, and the Citadel, is made of aeserium, isn’t it? Unbreakable, unbreachable…”

“Unless…” Thronsa began.

“Unless it could be turned into carbon. Brittle, breakable carbon,” Ostri completed, “Lucathar would have no trouble breaching the Tower in that case.”

Throna and Ostri shared a look that sent a chill through Athena.

“Do the D’varsha know what’s inside the Tower?” Athena asked the pair.

“No,” Ostri said, “Or not exactly. But we can be sure that if Lucathar seeks it, then we need to ensure he doesn’t succeed.”

“I have to find Igrisil,” Athena said.

“Before Lucathar does,” Ostri added.

Athena looked around the room. First she had to get out of this place, and out of Kaz’um.

“Can you-” she began, but was cut off as the door flew open and four D’varshan guards rushed through. Leonix entered behind them, and Aguel behind him.

“Athena,” Leonix said, the guards parting to let him through, “We’ve been looking for you.”