9. Kaz’um

> “The Aeseri believe themselves to be the first sentient species. The Elthenians believe themselves to be the same. Neither is correct.” - D’varshan history text

The gates to the fortress were only just tall enough to allow the caravan to pass through, but once inside Athena was amazed at the scale of the place. She had heard stories of the constructs of the D’varsha, and even seen some of them from the outside, but it was something else entirely to be inside of one.

On first impression it was as if the entire mountain had been hollowed out and a multi-level city built inside it, but every time she peered at a detail it revealed the same important difference: nothing had been built; everything had been excavated. The floor was sculpted and smoothed from the mountain rock, entire buildings had been made by hollowing out interiors, and what looked to be columns holding floor upon floor of the city were the solid stone left when open space was cut out around them.

The light was also stronger inside than the twilight they had just left. Some came from illumination, but much of the stone seemed to have a luminescence itself. Although, where it was dark, it was truly dark, as if the stone merely amplified the light nearby rather than creating any of its own.

“How long have the D’varsha been here?” Athena wondered aloud.

“Centuries at least,” Sekardi answered, “But they’ll never answer that question in any precise way.”

The Aeseri had been here for millennia and had built nothing like this, Athena thought. Nobody was even sure who had built the Citadel and the Walls. The D’varsha claimed they had constructed them when Aeserus was still on the mortal plane, although Aeseri historians considered the claim to be ridiculous. Still, since the Ascension, she knew of nothing else that had been constructed on the astral plane. The Aeseri had too much to do on the mortal plane, and they had no need for anything on this one. The Citadel itself was little more than a neutral meeting point, rarely inhabited by more than a few Aeseri or Engella at a time. A deserted city in what she had thought to be a deserted Wasteland.

The last of the caravan passed through the doorway and it was closed behind them. Athena looked behind to see huge machinery that drove the hinges and locked it firmly. That was another thing the Aeseri had never needed to do: to bring technology to the astral plane. The doors appeared solid enough to keep the Orques out in any case.

“Good travels?” one of the D’varsha called up to Aguel at the head of the caravan.

“Until we were ambushed by Orques, just today, Leonix,” Aguel replied, “Some way back down the canyon.” He gestured behind him.

“Orques? They don’t usually come so close to our gates.”

“No, but at least we were close enough to make it here before nightfall, once we had fought them off.”

“I’ll send out a party this evening. We’ll track them down. We don’t want caravans being attacked this close to our city or nobody will come this way,” the D’varshan said.

“I’d rather not have to fight my way through every time. It’s a hundred years longer taking the route around the mountains,” Aguel said with a half-laugh.

Athena looked at the D’varsha talking to Aguel. Like all of his kind, he was short, stocky, and had pronounced, almost oversized features compared to the size of his body. He was unarmoured and Athena assumed he was senior within their ranks. At some point later, if she could distinguish his face from those around him, and if she could get time alone with him, she would like to ask him more about how they came to be in the Wastelands and, most particularly, how they travelled back to the mortal plane. Despite Sekardi’s advice to stay silent, she needed answers to those questions more than anything else

Although the language between them was very friendly, the circle of D’varsh guards that surrounded them told Athena that the caravan was not entirely trusted. They were armed with primitive weapons such as swords and spears, which was all the armament she had seen in the Wastelands. If the D’varsha had brought technology with them it hadn’t progressed past very basic primitive weaponry. Their armour was also basic but looked formidable, and they outnumbered the caravan two to one. They might be short, only two-thirds of the height of either Aeseri or Engella, but she knew from experience that they were physically strong, and likely much stronger than any Aeseri.

“Don’t make any sudden moves,” Sekardi said with a half-smile.

“It’s okay, I fought alongside D’varsha a long time ago. I know how fearsome they are in combat. They’ll even consider taking a stand against Aeseri.” She paused for a second. “I think without them, and the Engella, on our side we wouldn’t have defeated Lucathar the first time.”

“Lucathar?” Sekardi said, “You fought in that war?”

Athena realised she’d said too much. It was a long time ago, when the universe was still taking shape. She and other Aeseri had taken Earth under their wing and were guiding its inhabitants, but Lucathar had his sights set on it. The war raged across half the galaxy, but the focus became Earth, for reasons that she could never understand. She had a fondness for the planet, she had to admit, and many Aeseri had helped in shaping its development, but it had never seemed all that remarkable in the grand scheme of things.

Yes, she thought, I fought in that war, alongside D’varsha, and even Elthenians. Somehow they had forged an alliance, although it didn’t last long once Lucathar was gone and the ancient species started bickering amongst themselves again. Some alliances never died, of course, and those who had fought alongside her on Earth knew that they could count on her help any time they needed it. Not that she could be much help to anyone now she was here.

“Where do they get the metals for their armour?” Athena asked Sekardi, changing the subject. “Do they bring it from the mortal plane?”

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“No. They mine for it, I think, and then refine it. It’s what they did on the mortal plane and the same skills seem to work here.”

“I didn’t even know metals like that existed here on the astral plane.”

“We never thought to look, did we? The Aeseri I mean. We had no need to,” Sekardi pointed out.

“I suppose not.”

Aguel bade the caravan to dismount and Athena slid from their rokkar mount to land beside Sekardi as she did the same.

“What should I do?” she asked, partly wanting to be of use, but mainly wanting to hide herself within the group. If she were the only member of the caravan not busy she might draw unwelcome attention.

“We only need to unload two of the rokkars. Those ones with the wooden crates. They’re carrying diamonds, and those with hardwood pieces, which is what the D’varsha are interested in.”

“Diamonds? Where from? How many?”

“The D’varsha have another fortress and mine, somewhere to the south,” Sekardi explained, “Whatever happened to Aeserus during the Ascension, one of the side-effects was to create an enormous diamond resource. They use it for weapons and mining. The hardwood is only available in the east. As far as I know, metals are only available in the mountain range we’re standing in, so on the return trip we’ll pick some up and take them back east and do the same trade in reverse, bringing wood this way.”

“Didn’t you say it takes centuries to reach anywhere?”

Sekardi nodded.

“We’ll meet up with another caravan and exchange goods. It keeps a constant supply moving. There are meeting places all over the Wastelands. The Market is the biggest, but trade happens all over.”

“So there’s a whole economy out there...” Athena mused.

“There has to be. Getting resources to the right places is tough, because the Wastelands is so much bigger than any planet on the mortal plane, and nobody’s worked out how to travel faster than a rokkar. Not yet, anyway.”

“Not yet?”

“The D’varsha have tried, but haven’t managed to recreate machinery with any reliability. Neither have the Elthenians. But this place is going to go through some big changes if they ever do.”

Athena wondered: How long had the Aeseri been sitting inside the Citadel, thinking they were special and alone in the astral plane, when there was a whole world operating just outside of their doors?

Sekardi unfastened the ties around one of the diamond crates and Athena tried to help, although she had a feeling she was more of hindrance. Between the two of them and a pair of Engella they rested the crate on the ground and Leonix, the D’varsha that Athena had assumed to be in charge, prized the top open. It was full of diamonds of all sizes, from little more than grains of salt to the size of a fist.

“We’ll have them weighed but it looks in order,” Leonix said to Aguel.

“Then there’s no need to weigh them,” Aguel replied with a broad smile, knowing that they were going to be checked and weighed no matter what he said.

Four unarmoured D’varsha filtered through the surrounding guards and picked up the crate between them. Another four came for the other crates and boxes of hardwood.

“We’ll bring the metals in the morning,” Leonix told him, “But the guards will escort you to your overnight quarters.”

“Your hospitality is as welcome as ever,” Aguel said, although Athena couldn’t tell if he was being genuine or sarcastic.

Athena followed Sekardi and they were led by a group of D’varsha guards across the large open space towards what Athena could only think of as a side street. It seemed strange to talk in terms of streets and squares when they were inside a mountain, but it felt exactly like that, as long as she didn’t look up to see the faintly glowing rock high above them.

“Incredible, isn’t it?” Sekardi said, “I know we used to have the power to hollow out mountains, and much more, in the mortal plane, but never with such art as this.”

Athena had to admit it was extremely impressive, especially to find it here, in the Wastelands. It made her think that perhaps there was some truth in the myth that the D’varsha had constructed the Citadel and the Walls that made up Jashard, although they were famed for carving and mining more than building block by block, which is how Jashard was constructed.

She looked behind her and saw the members of the caravan, all except Aguel, were being shepherded down the street with D’varsha guards at the front and rear. She had a sudden moment of panic that they were being funneled there as part of a planned attack, but the fear eased as the street opened out to a courtyard, walled on all four sides with archways carved out of the rocks and rooms behind them. Stairs led up to a second level.

The guards stepped aside at the entrance and the caravan filtered past. When they were inside the courtyard a pair of metal gates were shut behind them.

“Is this the hospitality Aguel welcomed?” Athena asked Sekardi. It bore more than a passing resemblance to a prison to Athena’s eyes.

“Relax, we’ll be well looked after, they just want to know where we are and this is easier than giving us a minder each. They don’t want outsiders wandering around. It’s only for one night.”

“It feels like we’re prisoners.” The bars of the gates were close together and too tall to climb. She presumed the rooms around the courtyard only had one entrance, and looking up she saw that the roof was formed of a kind of cage.

“How can we be anything but prisoners locked in a cage like this?” she asked. She had only recently escaped from one, although at least here she was not the only one held captive.

“You’re going to have to get used to having a lot less freedom than you’re used to,” Sekardi told her, “Remember we’ve got no power out here.”

“Just because it’s like that now it doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. We are still Aeseri.”

Sekardi gave her a hard stare.

“You’re not the first newcomer here to think they can change the place to their advantage, but let me tell you there are only two futures open to you. One: you come to terms with the fact that you’re going to have to get used to following instructions and keeping quiet if you don’t like them. Or two: you say or do something that someone or something doesn’t like, to someone who’s less patient than Aguel, and you lose the last of what little freedom you have to the highest bidder at the Market.”

“Neither option sounds like freedom to me.”

“It’s as much freedom as most of the species on the mortal plane have. The problem is that after millenia of privilege even a normal existence feels like a prison.”

Athena wanted to tell Sekardi that she was wrong, that she could change things, if only she could gather support. But now was no time for that argument, and she had a feeling Sekardi had already made her own mind up.

More importantly, if Sekardi was right and they were only staying in Kaz’um for one night then she didn’t have much time to find out how it was that D’varsha had reached the astral plane, how they travelled back to the mortal plane, and whether they would send her back so she could take up arms against Lucathar once more.

There wasn’t much she could find out from inside the courtyard at the heart of their temporary prison. She looked back at the gate at the entrance to the courtyard and the cage above them and felt a moment of helplessness. Perhaps Sekardi was right and she should learn to come to terms with survival as a goal in and of itself.